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EFFICIENT LIVING 






EFFICIENT LIVING 



BY 

EDWARD EARLE PURINTON 

Author of "The Triumph of the Man Who Acts," etc. 

Director of the Efficiency Service of 

The Independent 



NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY 

1915 



-$> 



y^ 1 



Copyright, 1915, by 
Robert M. McBride & Co. 



Published November, 1915 



DEC -8 1915 

©CI.A416774 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I What Is Efficiency? i 

II Study and Efficiency 34 

III Food and Efficiency . . . . . .63 

IV Home and Efficiency . . . . . . 91 

V Work and Efficiency 124 

VI Play and Efficiency 147 

VII Hygiene and Efficiency 170 

VIII Money and Efficiency 202 

IX Thought and Efficiency . . . . . .219 

X Guide to Efficiency Problems . . .258 



I 






I 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



CHAPTER I 
WHAT IS EFFICIENCY? 



RECENTLY I talked with the highest- 
salaried man in the world. I asked him 
how he had succeeded. 
He quietly answered, " I haven't succeeded. 
No real man ever succeeds. [There is always a 
larger goal ahead." 

This multi-millionaire has outrun every rival 
on earth. But he has not reached the goal of his 
own satisfaction. He is an efficient man. Effi- 
ciency begins with wanting something so hard the 
whole world can't stop you. 

Efficiency is new, and all new things are mis- 
understood. Conversing with an anarchistic labor 
leader, I chanced to mention the topic. He 
snorted his sentiments. " I hate the very word," 
he rampaged. " The idea of ticketing and mar- 
keting a man by how many motions an hour he 
can make, is a blot on the American flag," he 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



exclaimed patriotically. Then he begged me to 
aid his cause with a few dollars that I had made 
by studying efficiency. 

Efficiency is the difference between wealth and 
poverty, fame and obscurity, power and weakness, 
health and disease, growth^ and death, hope and 
despair. Efficiency makes kings of us all. 

Only efficiency conquers fate. Every man's 
life is a battle ground, with fate and efficiency 
struggling for possession. Fate is against him, 
efficiency for him, and all the man's forces are 
lined up on one side or the other. Where do you 
stand? Have you marshaled your thoughts, acts 
and emotions under efficiency's banner? If not, 
prepare to be assailed, overwhelmed and dismem- 
bered by fate. 

Efficiency tells us how great men have won their 
battle with fate, and how we can win ours. 
Efficiency leads us from a world of chance to a 
realm of choice, changing us from automatons to 
men. Efficiency provides our only freedom — 
that of shaping circumstances and hewing events 
to suit ourselves ! 

Look back ten years. Think what you have 
paid for experience. If you had known then what 
you know to-day, how much time, health, money, 
faith, energy, you could have saved. Efficiency 
offers the only short cut to experience by show- 

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WHAT IS EFFICIENCY f 



ing us what other men, similarly placed, have 
learned and done and been. 

What is efficiency? 

It is not motion-study, or vocation-test, or cost- 
saving, or any other mechanical thing. It is not 
an effort of greedy corporations to reduce their 
workers to money-making machines. It is not a 
panic to do so much that you wear yourself out. 

Efficiency is the science of self-management. 

We have none of us learned it. We feed our 
kine properly — and dig our own graves with our 
teeth. We curry our horses beautifully — and 
neglect to take baths enough to keep us well. We 
exercise our pet poodle daily — and pant for 
breath if we run a block. We oil our engines 
wisely — and allow rust to gather on our brain. 
We demand a perfect telegraph system — and let 
our nerves run wild. Man is the only machine 
we have never learned how to use. 

For our ignorance, we pay. It is estimated 
that seventy-three men out of every hundred are 
in the wrong job; that most men utilize only about 
a third of their mental and spiritual forces; that 
the average American family could live on what 
they waste; that our business firms lose 
$100,000,000 a year through ineffective advertis- 
ing; that in the United States there are always 
3,000,000 persons on the sick list; that the num- 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



ber of preventable deaths each year is 630,000; 
that the annual waste from preventable death 
and disease is $1,500,000,000; and that some- 
where in this country a workman is being killed 
every four minutes, and another being injured 
every four seconds! Do we not need efficiency? 

The American slogan is efficiency. We aim at 
world-supremacy. And the world-master must be 
first a self-master. 

England has had the efficient navy, Germany 
the efficient army, France the efficient household, 
Italy the efficient art, Japan the efficient hygiene, 
Scotland the efficient thrift, New Zealand the 
efficient government. And America? The ef- 
ficient nerve. We will try anything, and try for 
anything. Our destiny lies in our daring. Our 
nation's flag is the Stars and Stripes, because we 
aim at the stars — and smile at the stripes ! 

But we waste more than we use — more money, 
more strength, more time, more thought, more op- 
portunity. W T e must learn conservation and direc- 
tion through efficiency. Then we shall rule the 
world — if we deem it worth ruling. 

I was going to ask, " Are you efficient? " But, 
on second thought, I see how vain it would be. 
The only person who knows all about a man is his 
office-boy, and the only person who knows all 
about a lady is her kitchen-maid. I assume that 

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WHAT IS EFFICIENCY f 



you are neither the office-boy nor the kitchen-maid; 
so why bother you with foolish questions? A bet- 
ter method — a scientific test — herewith appears. 

It is safe to conclude that, if you are engaged 
in a large enterprise, and have not applied ef- 
ficiency methods to yourself and your associates, 
you are losing from $1,000 to $100,000 a year. 
If you are an individual, professional or indus- 
trial worker, your loss will perhaps run from $100 
to $5,000 a year. Why go on wasting this 
money? 

The difference between a hod-carrier and the 
head of a million-dollar corporation is that the 
hod-carrier works his hod instead of his head. 
For the hod he has trained his muscles, to the 
hod he is bound. To get ahead — get a head! 
The leader of men has trained not only his mus- 
cles, but I as well his nerves, his brain, his lungs 
and pores and organs or digestion, his thoughts, 
actions and emotions, his instincts, habits, aims 
and ambitions, his financial status and his moral 
sinew. 

How does the prize athlete gain his laurels? 
By setting a fixed goal, curbing his appetites and 
passions, living on the scant fare of the " training 
table," combining rigid self-control with huge self- 
exertion. The game of business, the game of 
life, demands as much. And efficiency sets the 

[5] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



training table for the man who is going to be a 
mental, financial or spiritual leader. 

Efficiency is the power of doing one's most and 
best, in the shortest time and easiest way, to the 
satisfaction of all concerned. 

I put this in italics, to make it stand out. And 
I would recommend that every so-called " ef- 
ficiency expert " swiftly and humbly paste it in his 
hat. Your work is not done when you go into 
a corporation and show the president how to save 
a million dollars a year. Efficiency is more than 
speed and economy — it is the reeducation and 
reconstruction of men. No worker is efficient 
until he would rather work than eat. Man is 
both a machine and a spirit. You've got to reach 
the spirit side, to make the machine go. The 
greatest corporations are doing this, and the suc- 
cess of modern institutions like the National Cash 
Register Company and the New York Edison 
Company lies in their habit of making their work- 
ers bigger men while making them better ma- 
chines. 

Are you doing your most and best? Do you 
execute your work in the shortest possible time 
and the easiest known way? Is everybody satis- 
fied with results — from president to office-boy, 
including clerks, clients, competitors, and your 
folks at home? If so, then you are ioo per cent 

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WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



efficient — kindly hand this article to a neighbor 
who needs it. (You will have no trouble finding 
him, because you are the only man i 1 the world 
who is perfect on all these five points.) 

The efficient person feels that he can do any- 
thing — but that he has done nothing. When I 
see the average " self-made " man, pompous and 
fat and wheezy, I with difficulty restrain myself 
from laughing impolitely. He looks like a house 
with the roof blown off, and half the basement 
caved in. An efficient man, like an efficient house, 
has four sides. His body forms the foundation, 
his mind the outer walls, his heart the inner hang- 
ings and treasures and pictures, his soul the gable- 
windows, the tower and the roof. To be merely 
an intellectual or financial giant is to be the hulk 
of a man. Efficiency must build on a splendid 
physique, and must crown its work with a spiritual 
faith. A dyspeptic is a house with no founda- 
tion, an agnostic is a house with no roof. 

Now for a practical, personal example. I know 
a man who has increased by about 500 per cent, 
his daily output of work, his optimism and will 
power, his health reserve and his financial re- 
sourcefulness. Let me tell how he did it. 

First. He analyzed himself. He discovered 
what he most wanted to do and have and be, in 
life. He was not dismayed by the fact that his 

m 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



desires looked about as unattainable as the moon. 
He said nothing, and took the next step. (What 
makes a dream visionary is not the dream but the 
do-lessness of the dreamer.) 

Second. He studied his possibilities and limi- 
tations, physical, mental and spiritual. By con- 
sulting authorities on athletics, higher metaphysics, 
vocational training, physiognomy and experimental 
psychology, he learned that his ambitions lay 
within the reach of his natural gifts. (We may 
remark in passing that these methods of character- 
reading are not infallible, and few of their expo- 
nents are reliable ; they contain, however, sufficient 
truth to make them valuable in choosing a career.) 

Third. He read the lives of the world's great 
man who had been leaders in his chosen field. He 
formed the acquaintance of living leaders, through 
mutual friends. He saw that he was out of gear 
in certain ways — and he proceeded to repair his 
faulty machinery, of body, brain, equipment and 
environment. 

Fourth. He resigned his position in a dignified 
profession; and got a menial, trivial job that paid 
next to nothing. The job was in line with his 
goal — the profession was not. And $5 a week 
in a place with an open door is a better wage 
than $50 a week in a place that leads nowhere. 

Fifth. He made the most of his job. The 
[8] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY? 



men who look for a job are so many because the 
men who look into a job are so few. Every job 
is a gold-mine of possibility; but you must work it 
by seeking and digging in your spare time. This 
youth took up motion-study, time-study, tool-study, 
and other methods of modern " scientific manage- 
ment." He learned to save two hours a day, 
which he spent in talking with men higher up, in 
reading trade books and magazines, in experiment- 
ing on ways of improving his work, and in plan- 
ning his line of advance. 

Sixth. He observed that he was handicapped 
by the presence of chronic ailments and disorders, 
which resulted in fatigue, headache, irritability, 
auto-intoxication, and other hindrances to good 
work. He studied hygiene, found that no disease 
is incurable, stopped the use of drugs, changed 
his methods of eating, began to take regular exer- 
cise and a morning sponge, kept his chamber win- 
dow wide open, did a few more sensible things 
that most people don't do till they have to — and 
presently watched his troubles disappear. By 
adopting health habits, he increased the daily out- 
put of energy at least 200 per cent and got so 
much more done. 

Seventh. He changed his mind. (This is 
supposed to be a custom for ladies only, but men's 
minds need changing oftener because they get 

[»] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



soiled quicker.) This man was naturally a pessi- 
mist and grumbler, harsh, cruel, hasty, blunt, sur- 
rounding himself with enemies and worries. 
Gaining sense enough to see what a fool he had 
been, he applied himself to a systematic cultiva- 
tion of optimism, faith, tact, patience, tolerance, 
courtesy, and other mental factors in efficiency. 
Having grown friendly minded, he attracted 
thousands of friends. And his work prospered 
accordingly. 

Eighth. He arranged to secure the best avail- 
able cooperation, financial, industrial and moral 
support, from his associates inside and outside the 
business. 

Ninth. He discerned that specific moral quali- 
ties were needed in him to produce leadership ; so 
he developed courage, will power, conviction, en- 
thusiasm, inspiration — as athletes develop physi- 
cal muscles. 

Tenth. He married the woman of his heart, 
and she made him do the impossible, to reach her 
ideal of strength and wisdom in a man. (This 
was not a part of his efficiency scheme. In order 
to be sure they will get discipline the good Lord 
lets men think they are marrying for happiness — 
else would they never marry.) 

The result? A few years ago this man's wages 
were $4 a week and board. He is to-day master 

[10] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



of three different lines of work, any one of which 
would yield a splendid income. And the mental 
and moral gains have been even greater. 

Now for the application. You and I can't fol- 
low the particular method of any other man on 
earth ; but we can recognize the scientific principles 
in the foregoing history and apply them in our 
way. 

The first move toward efficiency is to find how 
much we need it. When a man's grade falls be- 
low 80 per cent in college, he is considered a 
poor student, either very lazy or very dull. Yet 
in the appended self-examination for the school of 
life, not one person in a hundred reaches 80 per 
cent. Go over the questions and figure out where 
you stand. Then give a copy of the Test to each 
member of your family, club, class or business or- 
ganization. Properly used, the Test is worth 
more than a year of academic study, which costs 
perhaps $500. 

I judge that on this Test the average grade is 
40 per cent. 

This means that the $40-a-week man could, and 
should, earn $100 — and then be less tired and 
worried than he is now. What is your income? 
What might it be, on this ratio ? Efficiency meas- 
ure is money, and every item of this Test has a 
money value. 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



But the efficient man does not put money first. 
The pulse of the battle, with Fate and surround- 
ings and himself; the call of an unconquered world 
to gigantic effort; the inspiration of heroic deeds 
by other men; the might of self-rule, and the joy 
of self-expression; the loves of the heart and the 
longings of the soul; the far, lone gleam of des- 
tiny; these things nerve and impel the efficient 
man to do always more and be always greater. 

Magnificent possibilities lie unexplored, undis- 
covered, unimagined, within the mental recesses 
and spiritual treasure-troves common to us all. 
Only a crisis — a great responsibility, a matchless 
opportunity, a sudden death or disaster — avails 
to rouse and develop these unused powers. Lack- 
ing the crisis, we are prone to sleep or fritter our 
lives away. 

The transcendental problem of humanity is to 
be as great always as one can be at rare moments. 
Men are as great as they force themselves to use 
themselves. Genius is but an irresistible urge to 
be occupied. The man who succeeds has become 
a self-winding watch on his own movements, so 
that he knows by intuition when he is either run- 
ning down or wearing himself out. Starvation is 
the best remedy for under-action, sleep the best 
remedy for over-action. 

There is no error unattended by repression. 

[12] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY f 



We make mistakes because we are deficient in the 
power to see, or in the power to do as we see. 
But spiritual sight and sinew may be cultivated, 
will be cultivated systematically in the ages to 
come. The time is fast approaching when only a 
spiritual Hercules can move the world. Mental 
giants rule now, but their crude force merely cor- 
responds to the primitive condition of the race. 
First body-rule, now brain-rule, next heart-rule, 
finally soul-rule; this is the plan of world-sov- 
[ ereignty. 

What are some of the unused powers that we 
own but do not turn to advantage ? 

Unused muscles, unused lungs, unused instincts, 
unused emotions, unused perceptions, unused facul- 
ties, unused ideals. We say nothing of unused 
stomachs (gentlemen please note) or of unused 
tongues (ladies please note). If exercise alone 
could keep us healthy, the stomach and the tongue 
would exhibit so blithe a vigor that all meandering 
microbes would flee in disgust. (If you expected 
here only a sermon, and object to the ghost of a 
smile that may have come flitting across the hori- 
zon, please remember that of all our unused pow- 
ers, none more fully repays conscientious develop- 
ment than our somewhat timorous sense of 
humor.) 

Unused muscles cripple us. Not externally, but 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



vitally. If you ever witnessed the marvelous feats 
performed by Sandow or any other " strong man," 
you know what a beautiful network of muscles 
envelop and support the fine torso of the trained 
athlete — his body is a work of art. But do you 
know that his superb digestion is maintained 
largely by these interlaced muscular fibers, which 
hold the digestive organs in true position, thus en- 
abling them to act freely? Are you anaemic, thin, 
troubled with poor circulation? Then look to 
the muscles of arms and legs; for live blood fol- 
lows live muscles, and where there is weak assim- 
ilation there is weak sinew. So apparently re- 
mote a thing as sleep is affected by muscular con- 
dition; if your sleep is fitful, and your body tied 
in a bow-knot, your back muscles and shoulder 
muscles need attention — their flabbiness permits 
the spine to crook and the chest to sag, hence the 
nerves cannot relax nor the blood circulate. 
Withered muscles work havoc throughout the 
whole system. 

Unused lungs cripple us. The majority of 
civilized people exert only a fraction of their nor- 
mal breathing capacity; and a host of ills, from 
brain-fag and ennui to dyspepsia, come from this 
defect in respiration. Great singers, champion 
swimmers, and other such lung-developers, are 
usually marvels of robustness. On taking sudden 

[14] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



exercise, do you feel dizziness, vertigo, or rush 
of blood to the head. Then your lung chambers 
have been short of oxygen, since the effort to fill 
them causes unaccustomed pressure, which you feel 
accordingly. How long can you hold your breath 
without discomfort? If for a minute or longer, 
you may be glad of a pair of lungs that know 
their business and stick to it. The lungs are the 
organs of liberation; exercised deeply and regu- 
larly, they free us mentally and spiritually as well 
as physically. Conquerors have often been men 
of small stature — but of gigantic breathing 
power. From Cromwell on the battlefield to 
Beecher in the pulpit, the takers of the world's cita- 
dels have found their source of power in the 
breath. 

Unused instincts cripple us. The instinct of the 
animal guards him against foes, against poisons, 
against all outer perils known or unknown. At 
the approach of danger, the snail retreats into his 
shell, the porcupine bristles, the deer flees with 
the wind. Yet we, who are supposed to know 
more, do less. We regularly eat what we know 
isn't good for us, allowing poison, in quality or 
quantity, to enter the system through the mouth; 
we are guided by appetite instead of by hunger; 
we choke our food down when we should rest and 
ruminate ; we add tonics and peptonizers to the gas- 

[15] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



tronomic insult — then we sadly complain how 
afflicted we are with a poor stomach ! Moreover, 
we entertain as regular guests such thoughts as 
lead to mental paralysis and spiritual decrepitude 
— worry, fear, jealousy, doubt, dependence, de- 
ceit, compromise. The snail, the deer and the 
porcupine would do it better — in the presence 
of such intruders we must cultivate our shell, our 
sinews of flight, or our bristles if need be. 

Unused emotions cripple us. The height of 
our attainment is directly proportioned to the 
depth of our feeling. All great men have one 
trait in common; a fierce intensity, which annihi- 
lates all things superficial and irrelevant. Con- 
vention forbids this — convention thrives on petti- 
ness. It is not "good form" to feel deeply; it 
is good form to die prematurely, the coffin is the 
symbol of good form. So long as the favorite 
disease of fashion is repression, so long will nerves 
be the favorite symptoms of fashion. We might 
almost say that no man is healthy who has not 
experienced a sublime joy or an overwhelming sor- 
row. Our emotions extend us into a realm divine, 
the knowledge of which provides our human lives 
with infinite capacity for growth. To feel deeply 
is to understand the world, to feel nobly is to 
penetrate the heavens; to feel strongly is to force 
Fate. 

[16] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY"? 



Unused perceptions cripple us. Until we es- 
cape the dominion of the senses, we dwell in chaos 
personified. That is why the Oriental mystic re- 
fuses to converse, to eat, to shake hands, to see 
his friends, to enjoy music or perfume — until his 
outer senses have been silenced, that his inner sensi- 
bilities may be uttered. The self-banishment of 
Tolstoi on the eve of death, after his self-depriva- 
tion through life, was but an echo of the world-old 
cry of the soul to be loosed from the flesh, and per- 
ceive more clearly with the trammels gone. We 
cannot all be sages, seers or mystics, we have work 
to do on the earth-plane ; but we can all recognize 
the presence of finer forces about it, and so attune 
ourselves as to hear and voice in our own way 
the heavenly strains of the Great Monition. You 
tell me that prayer exalts the soul? I tell you 
that prayer clears the eye, steadies the hand, calms 
the nerve, quickens the judgment, strengthens the 
will, makes the whole man keen, alert, and sure. 
The non-religious man is a dwarf in his subjective 
nature. He is to be pitied, not condemned. 

Unused faculties cripple us. What can we do 
best? Are we doing it? Can we find in our 
work full scope and play for our talents? Are we 
consciously progressing every day toward a fixed 
goal? These questions are of life-long and earth- 
wide importance. Every human being is a con- 

[17] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



glomeration of plus and minus qualities, which 
must be classified, arranged, unified, before the 
personal equation is solved. There should be in 
every college a department of Character Study, 
devoted to the recognition, measurement and 
equalization of the strong and weak faculties of 
the youth who attend. The only drawback would 
be that the man able to run this department 
couldn't be held in a college — the corporations 
would get him at $50,000 or so a year! The 
warrior is weak in Ideality, the poet weak in Con- 
tinuity, the pedagogue weak in Combativeness, 
the hermit weak in Sociability, the cynic weak in 
Hope. Yet each is strong in his own peculiar 
field. The problem of life is so to choose our 
field that our strength may be apparent. 

Unused ideals cripple us. An ideal is a pre- 
monition of power. The idealist often squanders 
or fails to use his power — then the onlooker 
blames the ideal. There is nothing so dangerous 
to the spiritual life as to conceive an ideal, under- 
take a pilgrimage for it, then turn back. It is 
like entering a path over a chasm so narrow and 
steep that one false step means destruction, and 
you have not time to pause, or room to retreat. 
These are the marching orders given the idealist: 
" On and up — or die ! " Remain blind, if you 
will, to your own possibilities on earth, and the 

[18] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



glories of the heavens beyond. But having 
sought your vision, and beheld one thing clearly, 
follow that to the end. Nothing worse than 
death awaits. And to fall amid the peaks, with 
the sun full upon you, is a death that angels 
might envy. 

" How then may we find and free ourselves? " 

Perhaps you are asking this — every honest 
thinker must ask it sooner or later. 

There is no easy way, no quick way, no cheap 
way. The effective way is hard, and long, and 
painful. But all the great souls who ever lived 
have trod this way. And the greater the soul, 
the greater the willingness. 

Not long since, Thomas A. Edison was asked 
to explain his wonderful success. The kernel of 
his answer lay in one sentence : " The hardest 
way is almost invariably the best way." He went 
on to explain that whenever he achieved a result 
quickly and easily, he at once suspected its gen- 
uineness and proceeded to try a different method. 
Perhaps the first rule for the discovery of talent 
may be this: Always choose the hardest thing. 

Associate with people who have developed 
themselves, who have done things, not merely have 
things. The social climber is right in method, if 
not in motive; the way to get ahead is to follow 
those who have arrived. Do you enjoy being 

[19] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



with those who you know are superior to your- 
self? Then your powers are in line for develop- 
ment. 

But call no man your superior, call the man 
ahead merely your predecessor; call yourself as 
great as the greatest, then live up to the acclama- 
tion. 

Be much alone. Solitude is the birthplace of / 
strong ideas, fine plans and healthy purposes. 

Ask some kind friend to tell you exactly what 
he thinks of you. Double his praise and his cen- 
sure. Then you will get a fair idea both of what 
you may become, and of what you now are. No 
friend ever saw our best — or dared paint our 
worst. 

Keep in touch with the current literature of your 
business or profession. If you are a merchant or 
a metaphysician, a doctor or a manufacturer, a 
housewife or a teacher, there are books and maga- 
zines being published that would greatly expedite 
your work by suggesting ways to economize your 
expenditure of time, thought and money. What- 
ever vocation you pursue, keep in touch with the 
best minds and let your brain be constantly sharp- 
ened with new ideas from any source available. 

Learn to save motions in your work. This will 
give you time for something more valuable than 
work. 

[20] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



Acquire mastery of one thing at a time. It is 
a joy to master words, a joy to master thoughts, 
a joy to master acts, a joy to master feelings, a 
joy to master events, a joy to master people. 
But each of these forms of mastery is a study in 
itself; whoever is a graduate in one branch of 
mastery should forthwith enter another. 

Make a thorough, systematic, persistent study 
of the opportunities around you. Discontented 
people are merely blind. There are gates open- 
ing all the time, which the majority do not see 
because they are looking at the stars or in the mud. 
A willingness to face life clears away most of the 
shadows that obscure life's meaning. 

Have faith in your dream. It is the seed of 
your destiny, let no gust of Fate sweep it away, 
no man despoil you of it, no battle crush it. Out 
of dreams grow empires. 

Most of all, discover where your genius lies — 
then follow this path till you reach greatness. 
Make this your first business, outside of earning 
your living. Efficiency is primarily a study of 
human desires, an exploration of human powers, a 
training of human faculties and a massing of hu- 
man efforts. Genius is the guiding force back 
of all this. 

We know how to weigh our sugar and salt, 
how to measure our hats and bedposts, how to 

[21] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



drive our teams and trolleys — but the elements 
of genius that are born in every one of us we 
sadly ignore, appraising them in neither value, 
extent nor control. When a man builds a great 
fortune, or writes a great book, or achieves a 
great character, we then behold the results of his 
work and surfeit him with praise. But what he 
needed was to be understood, loved and helped 
while he was painfully toiling in the dark. To 
measure a man's capacities and instruct or inspire 
him in the training of them — this is the highest 
form of brotherly kindness. 

I suppose that in every group of twenty average 
people, from three to seven would attain a pre- 
eminent success, if they knew where and how to 
direct their talents. And the others, possessing 
the same knowledge, would enjoy a success for 
greater than their present realization. But our 
systems of education, society, politics, economics, 
and religion are devised to perpetuate mediocrity 
— they have no place for genius. So, when the 
spirit of genius animates a youth, he becomes a 
rebel. And as a rebel he is feared, hunted, slain. 

The first question that I would by law force all 
prospective teachers, doctors, ministers and par- 
ents to answer fully would be this : " How will 
you recognize, locate and develop the signs and 
promises of genius in the children under your 

[22] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY f 



care?" For it is the child's stupid caretakers 
who make the stupid child. One of the interest- 
ing, pathetic and absurd phenomena in the life of 
a genius occurs when he visits the place of his 
birth, and notes with amusement the sleepy-eyed 
whispers, long-eared head-shakings, and deaf-mute 
wigwaggings of the same old gawks that live in 
his home town. They " can't see yet what is in 
the feller ! Hain't he riz in the world — must 
hev been some fool luck! " 

It is never safe to think we know a child. For 
that which we condemn and punish in the child 
may be his source of power. 

Backwardness is often genius. Minds are, of 
two kinds — porous and retentive. The porous 
mind absorbs — and exudes — rapidly; it is the 
mind of the so-called " brilliant " scholar. The 
retentive mind absorbs slowly — and holds for 
later use. Thus George Eliot, James J. Hill, and 
many other types of genius were never heard of 
till after they were thirty-five, at which age the 
work of one's life is supposed to be established 
and productive. By similar token the " prize 
pupil" often ends in a clerkship — he used his 
mind for a sieve while in college, and the world 
doesn't want that variety. 

Failure is often genius. The soul of genius is 
too broad, too versatile, for close confinement in 

[23] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



a mere " job." So, until the man of genius dis- 
covers himself, he may flounder hopelessly while 
his dray-horse brethren apparently get ahead. 
Ulysses S. Grant was a " failure " in the class- 
room — and a genius on the field of battle. 
Nearly always, the depth of a failure foreshadows 
the height of some victory — to the man who 
never despairs but keeps on climbing. Most peo- 
ple are satisfied with ready-made jobs; but the 
patrician mind waits a little longer and has a bet- 
ter job made to order. 

Crime is often genius. We had a boy in our 
college who was forever " into all kinds of devil- 
ment," according to the statement of a pious pro- 
fessor. This youth was at the bottom of all the 
mischief in the neighborhood. He was a great 
explorer of forbidden things. The reformers 
strove in vain to tie his hands with mental and 
moral prohibitions. When he left college, with a 
reputation tarnished but a wit resplendent, he 
gravitated to a Government Experiment Station. 
Shortly he became known as a genius in examin- 
ing, analyzing and classifying all kinds of soils, 
for the benefit of the farmers. And in the work 
he loved, his character was redeemed. 

Poverty is often genius. The exceptional man 
is not allowed to make money in ordinary ways, 
lest he bury his talent in a grave of gold. There- 
in] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



fore he who starves may only be preparing to do 
a greater thing than the rich man ever dreamed. 
The most fertile brains, like the most prolific gold- 
fields, may be the last to be discovered. 

Idleness is often genius. All great achieve- 
ments are drawn first in dreams, by the pen of 
imagination, in the colors of desire. To scoff at 
the dreamer is to prove oneself a dolt in the psy- 
chology of efficiency. While Newton was for- 
mulating the discovery of the law of gravitation, 
the neighbors deplored his folly in thus wasting 
his time. To be wholly understood is to be 
proved common. And to be unwilling ever to, 
dream and drift and let the world go by, is to 
be robbed of the forces and flashlight of genius. 

Invalidism is often genius. The robust are sel- 
dom great — unless they developed their robust- 
ness. Fine talents go with a sensitive, nervous 
temperament, and a physical machinery overdeli- 
cate. The swine seldom needs a doctor — the 
canary often does. Moreover, physical infirmi- 
ties add to spiritual powers. Robert Louis Stev- 
enson became a great writer because he was soft- 
ened and sweetened and calmed and attuned by 
prolonged suffering and the willingness to bear it 
bravely. Most of the world-winners have had a 
physical or mental handicap to goad them on. 

Stupidity is often genius. A dynamo and a 

[25] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



dust-pan do not work in the same way. A man 
with a dust-pan mind can be stuffed with ancient, 
irrelevant, compulsory facts — and be graded 
99 per cent in scholarship. But the man with a 
dynamo mind will not stand for any such insult. 
I had a college friend who was the object of much 
pity and not a little ridicule. He simply could 
not " get his lessons." He was a leader in fra- 
ternal, musical and athletic circles — but his 
teachers passed him for graduation only because 
he was " such a well-meaning boy, though hor- 
ribly stupid." Ha ! And then again ha ! ha ! 
That boy today is vice-president and general 
manager of the largest concern of its kind in the 
world, with a salary said to be from $60,000 a 
year upwards. He is a genius — he was called 
a fool. 

Incorrigibility is often genius. You can dam 
up a freshet in Spring — but you may expect the 
stream to burst its banks and flood the surround- 
ing meadows. The child with overflowing spirits 
who is barricaded by injunctions and threats may 
become " incorrigible " — as the freshet does. 
But who blames the freshet? In a town near 
New York there was recently a wayward lad — 
the " bad boy " of the village — who for years 
had been the despair of teachers, doctors, minis- 
ters and parents, alike. His pranks were fiend- 

[26] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY f 



ishly cruel — but so fiendishly clever that he 
could not be caught and punished. He was the 
Jesse James of the neighborhood. Finally a 
teacher came who could read the signs of genius. 
With infinite love and tact, and the whole town 
against her, she trusted and guided the youth, 
showing him how to develop his creative powers. 
He has now modeled wonderful works of art, and 
bids fair to become a great sculptor or painter. 
Many a genius is condemned to the prison or asy- 
lum for want of a little sympathy from one who 
understands. 

There are in us all certain elements of genius. 
And we cannot be fair to ourselves and our neigh- 
bors, without knowing something of the nature, 
laws, methods and manifestations of genius. This 
knowledge enables us rightly to judge and stimu- 
late the masses, judge and emulate the leaders, 
judge and liberate ourselves. The possessor of 
unrecognized genius has to fear jealousy, bigotry 
and lethargy, all due to ignorance. The posses- 
sor of recognized genius has to face either enmity 
or idolatry, both due to ignorance plus imaginary 
knowledge. Among the foes of genius, idolatry 
is the worst — the ideals of Emerson and Whit- 
man are most violated by the esoteric primness 
of the adoring Emersonese and the imitative 
license of the torrid Whitmaniacs. It is a noble 

[27] . 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



and difficult task always to emulate the greatness 
of the great but never to imitate their weakness. 

Who among your friends is a genius undevel- 
oped? How are you going to help him find him- 
self, reach his place, and carve his name on his- 
tory ? Do you judge men by what they have done, 
or by what they may do? The small are fasci- 
nated by the possessions or the personalities of 
their friends - — the great are fascinated by the 
possibilities alone. To see limitless expansion 
ahead of our neighbor, and to want it for him, 
is to add cubits to our own mental stature. 

What now is genius? Merely individuality ex- 
alted, intensified, consecrated, educated and em- 
ployed. The majority of the citizens of this 
world are copies — not originals. Whereas 
genius is but the signature of God on a man de- 
signed by Himself. If we knew enough, we 
should say to our boys, " Be as great as the great- 
est man! " — instead of saying, " Be as good as 
the best man." For greatness appeals where good- 
ness fails — it is the stream, not the channel, that 
carries the force. 

A recent warfare of words between metaphy- 
sicians and psychologists was based on the query, 
"Can genius be cultivated?" The metaphy- 
sicians claimed that every man was a genius in 
embryo, the psychologists declared that few men 

[28] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 



could ever attain the heights of poetry, music, in- 
vention or finance. The dispute was never set- 
tled because neither side had enough genius to 
prove its case — which might be construed a vic- 
tory for the negative. The truth is probably this; 
that a few men and women are born with gigantic 
brains which enable them to express their highest 
gifts and immortalize themselves; that all men 
and women possess talents far in excess of what 
they use; and that many of those now called irri- 
table, eccentric, perverse, irresponsible, reckless or 
criminal would become great world-figures if their 
minds were understood and their powers trained. 
Genius is not abnormal, it is a flowering of the 
normal, and whoever does not manifest some form 
of it is either ungrown or a victim of the blight. 
As frost on a flower-garden, so is worldly cus- 
tom on the bloom of genius. Only the very 
hardy souls can survive the blight — genius might 
also be called a survival of self against the 
world. 

What is the practical lesson? Just this : Who- 
ever you are, and however circumstanced, you can 
do and be infinitely more. No matter how friend- 
less, or poor, or sickly, or aged, or unfortunate 
you may be, some one before you has conquered a 
worse difficulty or emerged from a greater priva- 
tion. The path of genius has ever been of thorns 

[29] . 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



— not roses ; for roses lure to the valley, while 
thorns point to the stars. 

Study your talents; organize your forces; build 
an ideal as wide as the world and as endless as 
God; keep your_own counsel; make a systematic 
study of opportunities leading to your goal; dare 
to attempt the largest thing in your dream; nur- 
ture and guard your vision as most men do their 
" job " ; be your natural self — and laugh at those 
who laugh at you ; form the habit of writing down 
and preserving all the new ideas or plans that 
come to you ; find the man in history who achieved 
most nearly what you hope to achieve — then sur- 
round yourself with as many books and reminders 
of him as you can afford to buy ; cultivate solitude, 
the source of inspiration — cultivate friction, the 
source of development; learn to conserve both 
time and energy, so that in your leisure hours you 
can have your genius work; analyze the duties, 
pleasures and habits that form your daily routine, 
decide which are non-essential, remove them and 
substitute real aids to your ambition; believe in 
your ultimate desire as firmly as you believe in 
Omnipotence, whence it came ; pay the price gladly, 
in suffering, toiling, starving, waiting, being mis- 
understood; and measure final success not by the 
honors of the world nor the clink of gold in your 
purse, but by your own Herculean effort that builds 

[30] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY $ 



the stature of immortality, and by the lightened 
hearts and illumined souls whose nobler lives praise 
you with honors everlasting. 

For in the end, genius is but the impulse to 
realize the divine, here and now. Divine beauty, 
divine strength, divine sweetness, divine skill, di- 
vine bravery, divine wholeness, divine love — ■ 
something divine fills and impels every one who 
achieves beyond the extent of his neighbors. To 
grasp this divine leading and be under this divine 
sway is to attain the impossible, enforce the mirac- 
ulous, and lift this world onto a level with God. 

PERSONAL EFFICIENCY TEST 

Copyright, 1915, by Edward Earle Purinton 

DIRECTIONS. In answering questions write 100 
for " Yes," o for " No." If the answer is a partial af- 
firmative write the number between o and 100 that ex- 
preses the degree of assurance. Then add the column of 
percentages, divide the total by 30, and the answer will 
be your approximate grade in efficiency. The value of the 
test lies in the honesty of the answers. 

Answers 
(in per cent) 

1. Do you like your work? 

2. Have you learned the best, quickest and easi- 

est way of doing it ? 

3. Are you thoroughly informed on " scientific 

management " ? 

[31] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



4. Do you know where your greatest power lies ? 

5. Have you a fixed goal, in line with your su- 

preme talent ? 

6. Do you believe absolutely in your own fu- 

ture ? 

7. Are you in perfect physical health ? 

8. Have you learned how to get well and keep 

well? 

9. Can you be optimistic, under all circum- 

stances ? 

10. Do you realize which of your habits, thoughts 

or emotions make you inefficient? 

11. Have you made an inventory of your mental 

and moral traits ? 

12. Are you correcting your known weaknesses; 

mental, financial, social or spiritual ? 

13. Have you discovered which foods, baths and 

exercises increase your energy and heighten 
your mentality? 

14. Do you breathe deeply and hold an erect pos- 

ture ? 

15. Is your sleep long and dreamless and refresh- 

ing, with your sleeping-room perfectly ven- 
tilated ? 

16. Do you drink three pints of pure water daily? 

17. Do you eat slowly, moderately, regularly? . . 

18. Is all your clothing made loose, to allow 

blood and nerves free play ? 

19. Are you independent, fearless, positive? .... 

20. Are you tactful, cautious, courteous ? 

21. Have you secured the best possible advisers 

and associates ? 



[32] 



WHAT IS EFFICIENCY 4 ? 



22. Are all your co-workers eager to help make 

your plans a success ? 

23. Do you wish your rivals well, and never 

speak ill of them ? 

24. Do you work harder than anybody else in the 

business ? 

25. Have you learned the science of planning 

your day ahead ? 

26. Can you relax entirely in your leisure hours? 

27. Are you saving money systematically? 

28. Do you enjoy art, music, literature, and the 

presence of little children ? 

29. Does your highest ambition include some real 

service to Humanity ? 

30. Have you a great love in your life, to steady, 

cheer and empower you ? 



Divide the total 
by 30. 
The quotient shows 
your percentage of 
efficiency. 



NOTE. A complete Efficiency Test would include 
other vital questions, but answers to these will furnish 
a self-analysis of approximate reliability. 



[88] 



CHAPTER II 
STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



WHOEVER holds a book in his hand 
holds the map of his own future. 
Greatness never grows out of books. 
But greatness seldom reaches maturity without 
being guided, nourished and refreshed by the char- 
acters, thoughts and ideals found in books. 

Watch a man eat, and ypu can fairly predict 
what his body will be, twenty years hence. Watch 
him read, and you can foretell what his mind will 
be. Watch him study, plan, meditate, dream, 
judge himself, test himself, renew himself through 
silence — and you can prophesy, if you are dis- 
cerning, what his character will be, his power, 
his value, to the race. For destinies are always 
engraved on the mind before they are flashed on 
the world. 

Two boys, apparently of similar talents, tastes 
and ambitions, go to school together. They study 

[34] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



the same books, play the same games, have the 
same companions, meet the same discipline, attend 
the same church. Forty years later, one is at the 
top of the ladder, the other is at the bottom. 
They have nothing in common between them, they 
are as far apart as though reared in foreign lands. 
Why? Because each, knowingly or unknowingly, 
has built his mind from a different sort of food; 
each has read, thought, purposed, willed and acted 
in a fixed groove - — the one leading up, the other 
leading down. If every man who fails could have 
had the right mental food, there would be no such 
thing as failure in the world. 

That is but a popular way of stating a scientific 
principle. Before psychologists knew the inherent 
powers of the soul, heredity was thought to be 
the controlling factor in life. But environment 
and association are now recognized for the real 
builders of character; and what are these but 
modes of mental influence? The mediocre man 
is the sum of his surroundings ; the colossal man is 
the difference between his surroundings and him- 
self. For greatness feeds primarily on its own 
faiths, convictions and resolves ; and you may know 
that the genius in a man is awaking when he first 
beholds how small his environment has become. 
The tragedy of youth is the hunger for an under- 
standing of its aspirations. The child who runs 

[35] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



away from home is in search of the kind of mental 
food to satisfy him. He should be nourished — 
not punished. When teachers, ministers and 
parents learn how to feed the minds of children 
properly, there will be no more dullards, no more 
worldlings, no more " black sheep of the family." 
A family " black sheep " is largely the product of 
the mental soot and moral tar which the others 
have exuded in approaching whiteness. Few 
black sheep are of a blackness all their own; their 
blackness is created and perpetuated by the minds 
of others. 

When a man falls a prey to disease, he is thor- 
oughly examined. The blood and other secre- 
tions of the body are tested, and by their constitu- 
tion the diet is determined. Equally should the 
victim of poverty, failure, pessimism, worry, nega- 
tion, irreligion or crime be analyzed in his emo- 
tions, and his mental disorders be corrected by a 
systematic change of thought. We label our 
noxious drugs " Poison." This for safety. But 
where one eats poison, a hundred think poison. 
How shall they be saved? 

Feeding the mind is more important than feed- 
ing the body. During possibly two hours in the 
twenty-four we are engaged in feeding the body. 
But there is never a moment, day or night, when 
we cease to feed the mind; even in sleep the mind 

[36] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



is recounting the experiences of the day and fore- 
casting the events of the morrow, by a subtle proc- 
ess which we hardly as yet understand, but which, 
we are led to believe, does exist. The brain rests 
— the mind never rests. For the mind never 
tires, and never needs to rest. 

Then again, physical nourishment affects this 
life only, while mental nourishment becomes a part 
of the future life as well as of the present. There 
are millions of believers in re-incarnation. They 
hold that we are constantly building and rebuild- 
ing a psychic body, which forms the spiritual nu- 
cleus of the external organism, becoming manifest 
partially in this life, completely in the next life, 
when the outer body will correspond with the 
inner, thereby revealing us to the world as we have 
been to ourselves. In short, we are the book in 
which the Recording Angel writes the history and 
judgment of our lives. Every thought, hope, 
wish, feeling, mood, prayer and desire will thus 
appear, in due time. 

This automatic record is even now being kept, 
and may easily be discerned. Compare the face 
of the poet with that of the financier, of the 
teacher with that of the pugilist, of the actress 
with that of the nun. You will find the mental 
food that each has preferred visibly incorporated. 
And this change goes on, to the very moment of 

[37] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



death. For there is no age to the soul, and he 
who wills may ever create himself anew in the 
image of his ideal. 

Just how does thought feed the mind ? In two 
ways: by expanding the cells, and by deepening 
the convolutions of the brain. The cells are like 
muscles; every idea stimulates a particular group, 
and if we take enough of any one kind of mental 
morsels, we shall have a corresponding increase 
of brain area and function. Thus, the regular 
members of the great army of the unemployed are 
constantly rolling hard-luck stories under their 
tongue, so that presently their whole system is in- 
oculated with the poisons of self-pity, inertia, 
envy, irresponsibility, indecision and complaint. 
They do not want a job, they want a jobless uni- 
verse, and they won't be happy till they get it. 
But the captains of industry have succeeded 
through making their work their whole life. One 
of the world's greatest empire-builders who re- 
cently passed on had this said of him by a close 
friend: " He died because he always took his 
work home with him ; he couldn't stop thinking and 
planning in bed; his brain was most active while 
others slept." And the vagrant beggar, who had 
never owned an original thought, doubtless grum- 
bled at the " luck " of the millionaire. The 
greatest luck lies in learning that there isn't any. 

[38] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



The convolutions of the brain represent fixed 
habits of thought and subjective tendencies result- 
ing therefrom. Viewing a sublime panorama 
from an Alpine summit, each traveler will behold 
the scene from a different angle, formed by the 
trend of his mind. The artist will picture the 
glowing colors, the poet will sing a rhapsody to 
Nature, the priest will think what a wondrous 
way to God, the lover will plan how to be alone 
with his Dearest on the farthest peak. And the 
iceman will conjure up gloom on the awful waste 
of snow! Each has a mind filled with certain 
thoughts not to be dislodged even by the world's 
incomparable spectacle of majesty and light. Of 
what use a world, when the mind is all in all to 
itself? 

The analogy is very close between food for the 
body and food for the mind. Note the resem- 
blances, and their applications to study and effi- 
ciency. 

i. The body is formed not by what we eat but 
by what we assimilate. There are very fat men 
who eat almost nothing, and there are very thin 
men who can never get enough. Fat folk digest 
what they eat, thin folk do not. There are 
perennial talkers, and omnivorous readers, whose 
minds are pale and attenuated. Conversely, there 
are silent people whose minds are comely and ro- 

[39] . 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



bust. It is not the facts in our brain that make us 
great, but the feelings in our heart with which we 
use the facts. That is why the old-fashioned 
dried-up college professor is an intellectual 
mummy — he has embalmed his facts instead of 
embodying them. Knowledge is death until vital- 
ized by love. 

2. Physical diseases are mostly the product of 
wrong diet or foolish habits of eating. This is 
true especially of rheumatism, colds and indiges- 
tion. And it is true of mental states of health — 
the mind of the orthodox thinker inclines to rheu- 
matism, the mind of the radical thinker is sub- 
ject to colds-and-fever, the mind of the bookworm 
suffers from indigestion, the mind of the novel- 
reader is afflicted with consumption, and the mind 
of the gossip shows a virulent case of measles. 
Nearly all human minds are somehow sick; be- 
cause ill-fed, under-fed or over-fed. 

3. The healthiest diet is a mixed diet, with many 
kinds of food alternating. Some people boast 
that they can live on peanuts and bananas for an 
indefinite period. Doubtless they can. But how? 
Because their intellects are of a peanut size and 
their instincts of a banana mushiness. The man 
who can stay healthy and happy on one kind of 
food is not far from the amoeba. The normal 
human appetite craves many things in order, but 

[40] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



few things at a time. So with the sane mind — 
it chooses one kind of thought until that satisfies, 
then another, and another. Spare-time reading 
should be as varied as books are varied, including 
science, romance, poetry, theology, psychology, 
art, invention, finance, love and home-making. 
The highest function of a library is to make us 
feel at home in any part of it. 

4. The manner of eating is as vital as the ma- 
terial and amount of food. Eating without hun- 
ger, zest and enjoyment is often worse than not 
eating at all. So, the child who studies listlessly 
will be anaemic in his mental life, a victim of psy- 
chic auto-intoxication. The secret of a healthy, 
growing mind is to have or to simulate a hearty 
interest in the thing one is doing. Mental par- 
alysis is chronic with Government employees ; hav- 
ing nothing to work toward, and nothing to plan 
for but holding their jobs, they allow their minds 
to petrify. Work that does not animate the will 
is poison. 

5. Food that is earned is the sweetest. The 
hereditary millionaire is a violation of natural law. 
And his ennui proves it. Nature gives us noth- 
ing but the talent and the opportunity to make or 
take what we want for ourselves. The real price 
of a thing is not money, but effort. So the day- 
laborer buys with his toil his hunger; while the 

[41] , 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



I 



monied prince would gladly give his over-loaded 
board for the appetite to munch a crust. Neither 
can mental assimilation be purchased with money 
— the chap who values information has had to 
hustle for it. Earning is the essence of learning. 
That is why the boy who works his way through 
college gets all that college has to give a boy. 
Teach a youth to memorize facts from a book? 
Perhaps; but certainly teach him how to think, 
to observe, to read, to ponder, to plan, resolve and 
achieve — then he will educate himself in a higher 
knowledge than any mere college graduate could 
ever boast. 

Here is an experiment, illustrating the nature 
and force of mental nourishment. 

Like most people, the writer has plenty of things 
to make him unhappy if he would allow them to. 
So, the other evening, he resolved to feed his mind 
on whatever thoughts happened to enter, and to 
watch results. The thoughts which came first 
were those of doubt, discouragement, loneliness, 
anxiety, pessimism, self-pity and revolt (due prob- 
ably to a condition of physical exhaustion). He 
dwelt on these images, incorporating the ideas in 
his mind as food is made part of the body. The 
result? Before the night was over, he was suf- 
fering with a pronounced headache, a slight sore 

[42] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



throat, a feverish temperature, a disturbed diges- 
tion, a depressed lung-action, and dull pains in the 
heart. Yet chronic grumblers, grievers, peevers 
and scandal-mongers can not understand why their 
doctor doesn't keep them well ! 

Recently the story of " Raffles, the Gentleman 
Burglar," was published in a New York paper 
and played on a New York stage. Immediately 
there followed an epidemic of burglaries in vari- 
ous parts of the city. It is notorious in police cir- 
cles, that one fire by incendiarism leads to others; 
and that certain crimes, when aired by court trial 
and newspaper comment, reproduce themselves. 
We shall never have a healthy community until we 
find a way of disinfecting the poisoned minds that 
we permit to roam at large. 

In most of our public schools, which we laud as 
the great American institution, there exists a moral 
pestilence and contagion far more deadly than the 
surface epidemic which we quarantine with frantic 
haste. I refer to the premature knowledge and 
ruinous exploitation of sex. This, wherever chil- 
dren gather, is the great menace to future homes. 
The minds of the young are nearly always hungry 
on this point; and until parents have the courage, 
the purity and the wisdom to feed their minds with 
facts, rather than stimulating them with doctor- 
myths and stork-fables of the origin of life, we 

[4.3] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



may expect nothing better than that little girls of 
eight and nine years should learn of the sacred 
mysteries from lips that reek with immorality. 
Is this putting it too strongly? Ask any experi- 
enced physician — and make him tell you. 

Can we control our thoughts ? This is the vital 
question. Yes, we can ; — immediately to a cer- 
tain extent, finally to an almost unlimited extent. 
How? By making psychology an everyday study, 
as the sensible among us have come to make diet. 

First, we must realize that the mind never grows 
old, it is fresh and young and powerful so long as 
we nourish it properly. Hence, no matter what 
our record of failure may be — whether weakness, 
disease, poverty, misfortune, ignorance or sin — 
we can start now to build a new personality. And 
the building process will continue, slowly, perhaps 
unconsciously, but with absolute certainty, while 
we keep the brain supplied with wholesome, pure, 
strength-giving thoughts. 

Next, we must analyze our thought-habits, 
choosing the ideas that we entertain, as we select 
our food on the bill of fare. If some one should 
offer to place a grown man in a high-chair and 
feed him with a spoon, he would be deeply in- 
sulted, or amused, and would question the sanity of 
the speaker. Yet the average grown man swal- 
lows other people's ideas with no more resistance 

[44] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



or independence than a baby manifests over a sau- 
cer of gruel. Only our thoughts nourish and 
build our minds. Most of our thoughts we should 
originate ; and others we should accept only as we 
feel they belong to us. 

Again, we must wisely apportion our mental 
meal-hours. I think that for every hour one 
speaks, he should read two hours, and meditate 
three hours. This ratio is generally about re- 
versed. Meditation is to the mind what sleep is 
to the body — the agent of balance and assimila- 
tion. The man who talks, or reads, or listens, in 
most of his spare-time, is a mental glutton, he 
makes of eating a perpetual action. The mind is 
renewed not by the mere absorption of ideas, but 
by the exercise of them, and by a gracious pause 
between. 

Further, we must keep our mental menu bal- 
anced. If a person eats all meat, or all fruit, he 
will be sick. The same rule holds mentally, and 
to violate it means psychic disturbance. Convic- 
tions are the bread of the soul; desires are the 
meat of the soul; emotions are the fruit of the 
soul; inspirations are the drink of the soul; and 
Human Will is the host that sets the feast. How 
could your mental menu be improved? 

Finally, we must detect our chief spiritual hun- 
ger, and satisfy that first. The Mental Scien- 

[45] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



tist bids us " hold the thought " of love, truth, 
beauty, kindness, purity, power, or any other trait 
to which we aspire. That is good. But there is 
something better — the habit of dwelling on our 
personal idea of accomplishment. What are we 
here for ? Have we found our place in the world, 
and are we filling it? Have we assumed con- 
scious control of our destiny? Can we not be in- 
finitely greater than we ever dared to be ? 

All failure is a form of stupidity. The cure for 
stupidity is study. Therefore study would pre- 
vent all failure. 

Unpreparedness and misfitness are the two great 
handicaps in the business world to-day. These 
would both be removed by study. 

Millions of human beings are sad and de- 
pressed, for one cause or another. But sadness 
generally is blindness, tears come only to eyes half- 
closed. 

Fate has no power to work ill upon us. Fate 
is but the cloak of folly. And folly hides some- 
where in every lack or loss of the things we should 
enjoy — health, energy, opportunity, money, popu- 
larity, freedom, contentment. 

Study is the map, work is the road, to efficiency. 
The map comes first. 

By study I do not mean, however, the mental 
process of a bookish man, by an oracular method, 

146] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



in a sequestered place. To study a book without 
knowing the why and how and whence and 
whither of the matter is like sitting down, blind- 
folded, to a dinner in a strange restaurant, then 
dipping your spoon into any and all dishes with 
no regard save to keep on dipping. You are 
likely to mix olives and ice-cream on your mental 
menu. Very studious persons often look as if they 
had just eaten olives and ice-cream together. 

Brain-worship is the fetish and curse of most 
of our educational institutions. The aspirations, 
emotions and instincts are neglected, while the 
mere corrugations of a cerebrum are idolized. A 
savage, on visiting an American University, would 
exclaim with disgust, " These men heap big fool ! 
They make totem-pole out of own head! " (It is 
no great job, forsooth, inasmuch as totem-poles 
are regularly made out of wood.) 

I know a shrewd business man who never sets 
foot on a college campus — he will walk a mile, 
to go around it. He says that the aimlessness of 
college students irritates him beyond words; 
among them he would waste so much energy in 
flaying the school system that his work would suf- 
fer the next day. 

The gentleman is not entirely wrong. I spent 
eight years within college walls — first as student, 
afterward as teacher. The lessons gained were in- 

[47] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



valuable. Yet, having studied books for eight 
years, then having studied life for sixteen years, I 
am convinced that the majoriy of college students 
never learn how to study, and that fully half the 
time is wasted. No one is to blame, we simply 
have not learned what study is for. 

A suggestion may here be in order. One of the 
first official acts of a college president should be 
to get a huge blank-book, elegantly and durably 
made. The word " Why? " should be engraved 
in bold letters on the cover. Each candidate for 
college would have to sign this book, on the page 
reserved for him, also to place therein his best 
photograph. He would answer this question in 
particular: " Why am I going to college, what 
will I get from it, what can I give to it? " Then 
upon graduation he would record his measure of 
realization and satisfaction, present a new photo- 
graph showing his mental, physical and spiritual 
development, and offer suggestions for improving 
college methods, teachers and students. 

Such a book, properly used, would in time be 
worth more to the college than the college library. 
You can no more wind up a man without regulat- 
ing his motive than you can wind up a clock with- 
out regulating its mainspring. There should be 
fewer speeches containing good advice, and more 
statistics showing good achievement, on graduation 

[48] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



day. The way to make a school efficient is to 
do less checking and more checking up. 

In a New Jersey town a man was arrested lately 
for begging on the street. He had no money, no 
home, no friends who would help him. He could 
speak ten languages — and he could not earn the 
wages of a messenger boy. He was much grieved 
because the erudition he contained was no protec- 
tion from starving; and the fact of his arrest was 
the crowning sorrow of his bleak, forlorn exist- 
ence. Was it right to arrest this man? No. 
The college president who robbed him of time 
and money and youth should have been arrested, 
for the crime of selling at great cost to a young 
man, ten languages not worth ten cents. An hour 
devoted to the measurement of this course of study 
by efficiency standards would have prevented this 
man's pitiful, tragic failure. 

But I am not a materialist, I do not put com- 
mercial values first. Therefore I would have each 
man or woman taking up the study of efficiency, 
analyze the motives, determine the aims, and fix 
the principles governing the study. The mental, 
social, moral and spiritual advantages outweigh 
the financial reward. Efficiency is not a money- 
making device. It prevents waste, but only by 
teaching a man how to think. It improves in- 
come, but only by increasing quantity and quality 

[49] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



of output. A clear view of the benefits to be de- 
rived must precede a rational course of study. I 
have spent fifteen years in study, research and ex- 
periment along efficiency lines. The chief reasons 
for this prolonged endeavor have been as follows : 

Efficiency helps us do and have and be every- 
thing worth while. Being and having both follow 
doing. The largest factor in doing our best is 
doing our most. Hundreds of progressive teach- 
ers and ministers are asking how to use the prin- 
ciples and methods of scientific management in 
schools, churches, and other philanthropic institu- 
tions. No further proof is needed of the moral 
value of efficiency study. 

Efficiency shows us what we can do best. The 
majority of people never learn this lesson. It cost 
me thousands of dollars, and ten years of most 
arduous, bitter experience after I left college. 
Such a waste is a crime, and the only prevention 
lies in systematic study of one's nature, talents and 
opportunities. 

Efficiency adds to our productivity, hence to our 
income ; it helps to cure whatever ails us — 
whether it be poverty, pessimism, vice, disease, 
worry, failure, grief; it ensures self-command and 
therefore self-respect; it promotes human service 
by inculcating a spirit of understanding and co- 
operation; it prepares the way for life's realities 

[50] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



— fellowship, culture, idealism, faith, growth, 
truth. I want efficiency, to give me freedom for 
greater, better things than efficiency. 

There is a general misconstruction of the word 
" study." A real student is not a pale, sad per- 
son with a heart of stone, head of wood, and 
glassy eyes glued on the pages of a book. Nor 
is study the memorizing and repeating of dis- 
jointed facts in an automatic, paralytic way! 
Study is the focus of heart, mind and body on a 
practical method of attaining a specified ambition. 
Of all the different factors in scientific study, book- 
learning is of least importance. I mention this 
fact here, in order to prevent the almost universal 
mistake of trying to depend on books of wisdom. 
A student's first move should be not to hunt a book 
but to hunt a backbone. Study means more than 
the average student ever dreamed of! 

Study means the faith to believe, that the man 
who teaches you is competent, the method practi- 
cal, the result beneficial, the principle ideal. Study 
means the will to do all that any man ever did, 
for the accomplishment of a similar purpose. 
Study means the power to observe the successes 
and failures around you, in your line of endeavor, 
and to apply the lessons to yourself. Study means 
the calmness to reason as to whether teacher and 
text may be right or wrong — and the courage to 

[51] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



think for yourself, in spite of prestige or prece- 
dent. Study means the energy to attempt what- 
ever you are prompted to undertake, and to follow 
a regular or an irregular method, whichever seems 
best. Study means the caution to safeguard your 
own errors, by asking your teacher and friends 
what your weak points are, and by stopping to 
think before you act. Study means the honesty 
and bravery to learn by your mistakes, and to hold 
yourself accountable for such temporary failure 
and misfortune as we all have to meet if we get 
anywhere. Study means the persistency to over- 
come ten thousand obstacles — and the faith to 
smile at the ten-thousand-and-first. Study means 
the wisdom to emulate the leaders in your chosen 
field, and the modesty to remain a student, no mat- 
ter what your eminence may be. Study means the 
aspiration to attain heights of culture and charac- 
ter not measured by money, and not reached till 
your money-making period is safely past. 

In efficency study, we have two primary divi- 
sions, correlated but distinct; — the personal 
phase, which is general and fundamental, and the 
technical or vocational, which applies to our spe- 
cific trade or profession. These are related as the 
trunk of a tree to the branches ; human nature be- 
ing the trunk, and our various occupations being 
the branches. To study the mechanical side of a 

152] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



business before mastering the physical, mental, so- 
cial and spiritual sides would be as foolish as try- 
ing to climb a cherry tree by jumping at a branch 
of it. The coordination of a man's brain, body, 
heart and soul, and their concentration on his 
work, normally precedes the choice and use of any 
tool, method or equipment required for the work. 

Let us take, for example, the case of a man saw- 
ing wood, and observe the elements that make him 
efficient or otherwise. 

First, we study the tool, then we study the man's 
way of employing the tool. There are at least 
ten constituents to be found in a reliable saw. 
( i ) The size, weight, and function must be appro- 
priate; (2) the edge must be keen, the action 
swift; (3) the steel must be of fine quality, well 
tempered; (4) the handle smooth, firm and prop- 
erly shaped; (5) the blade and handle scientifically 
balanced; (6) the right oil or grease available for 
keeping the saw bright; (7) a good sharpening in- 
strument handy; (8) a receptacle near, high and 
dry, and safely enclosed; (9) a guarantee fur- 
nished by the maker as to the flawless character 
of the tool; (10) a set of complete instructions 
on the use and care of the saw, given to the pur- 
chaser without fail. Nearly every home contains 
a kit of tools; every home was built from a long 
list of materials; every business or profession calls 

[53] . 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



for a certain group of utensils; but how many 
people ever gave an hour of scientific study to this 
matter of equipment? And nothing is needed but 
a little common sense. 

Now let us study the man himself. We find 
a hundred variants, depending on the personal 
equation, and all as important as the nature of the 
saw. If he is weak in the sense of calculation, he 
will saw crooked — and lose his job as a carpenter. 
If he is of a nervous temperament, he will saw by 
jerks; and if he is poetic besides, he will saw his 
thumb instead of the board (doubtless that he may 
write a sonnet on how he suffers). If he has not 
eaten for several days, he lacks the energy to 
saw wood manfully; but if he has just eaten a 
table d'hote dinner, his strength has gone to his 
stomach and all he can do is breathe. (This is a 
purely hypothetical case — any man with so little 
sense as to eat a full table d'hote dinner cannot be 
safely trusted with a saw.) 

If he wears a tight collar, he may precipitate 
the vertigo; and if also scratchy flannel under- 
clothes, his volubility will sound like vertigo and 
black fever mixed. If he takes alcohol or other 
stimulants or drugs, and attempts to be a sawyer, 
he violates the " Safety First " principle, now be- 
coming cardinal throughout the trade world. If 
last night he was " out with the boys," he lacks the 

[54] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



clear eye, steady nerve, and store of vitality needed 
in the efficient sawer of wood. If he has just 
passed through a great sorrow, he is numb — in 
brain, heart and hand. If he hates the work, or 
begrudges the " boss," or belittles the pay, he will 
skimp on time or speed or attention. If his health 
is below normal, his work will slump, in both char- 
acter and amount. Briefly any condition of the 
man which affects unfavorably the mental, physical, 
emotional or spiritual energies of the man reacts 
on his work, the measure of such reaction be- 
ing incalculable throughout every large industry. 
Would it not seem that such matters are as worthy 
of study as the bounding of rivers in Africa, the 
memorizing of dates from antiquity, or the carry- 
ing of logarithms to a hundred decimal points? 

Another basic item is that of expense. For il- 
lustration, take the matter of a cooking-stove; the 
original price, the cost of fuel, and the charges for 
upkeep. Not less than eight different kinds of 
heat have been used in America for cooking pur- 
poses : — coal, wood, coke, oil, gas, electricity, 
denatured alcohol (liquid), denatured alcohol 
(solid) . How many wives and sweethearts, plan- 
ning their first home, consider the choice of fuel 
as of great importance, learn which kinds are avail- 
able, desirable, and economical — then base their 
cook-stove squarely on the result? Is not the 

[55] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



usual custom for a housewife to inherit a coal- 
stove from her ancestors, or accept a gas-stove 
from her architect, being guiltless of thought in 
either case ? Yet, in a large household, the varia- 
tion in cost of heat may run as high as $50 a year, 
and the time expended in managing the heat may 
be 100 hours a year more than it should. There 
are women who have learned, in 100 hours, to be- 
come self-supporting, and to earn $500 and up- 
ward a year, instead of losing $50 and 100 
hours. The heat factor is but one of many, all 
demanding equal application of science and sys- 
tem. 

Other essentials are time-study and action-study. 
Here is an example. I know a gentleman, of pre- 
cise habit and punctilious mind, who would open 
his morning mail somewhat in this fashion. He 
would first arrange the letters in a beautiful 
geometrical pile, all facing to the front. Then 
he would take a pair of shears and slowly detach 
an algebraic portion of the envelope. Then he 
would read the letter, prepare the answer in his 
mind, put the letter back in the envelope, and the 
envelope in a deskbasket with an artistic label. 
Then, having treated each communication thusly, 
he would arrange and proceed with other work. 
At 4 p. M. he would rescue the column, ruminate 
on the letters, and call his stenographer. By this 

[56] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



time she was thoroughly tired and had lost her 
dictation-speed, while he was irritable and had for- 
gotten what he wanted to say. t To get the mail 
out, she had to stay overtime every night, and de- 
layed answers to correspondents were of chronic 
regularity. 

Efficiency revolutionized this man's method. 
He bought a letter-opening machine ; told his sec- 
retary to operate it — which she did in five min- 
utes every morning; had her pin each envelope to 
the back of each letter, and sort the letters by sub- 
jects. He worked out a series of form-replies, put 
a numeral on each, and dictated a large percentage 
of his correspondence by mentioning a series of 
numbers. He changed the dictation-hour to the 
morning, when he and the stenographer were both 
fresh and bright. And he now saves from 30 to 
40 minutes a day by such a reform. His time is 
worth probably $10 an hour. On this one item, 
efficiency study has been worth at least $30 a week 
to this one man. The principle avails for every 
man — whether his work be writing sermons or 
digging ditches. We never happen on the best, 
quickest and easiest way of doing anything; we 
have to study it out. 

Hundreds of people, from housemaids and 
farm boys to government officials and college presi- 
dents, have asked the writer for concrete sug- 

[57] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



gestions on self-training and self-advancement. 
There are at least ten lines of thought and action 
leading to personal efficiency. Follow as many 
as you can. 

i. Study books; on health, diet, baths, exercise, 
economy, finance, vocation, scientific management, 
household engineering and every other subject re- 
lating to efficiency. Your city library should con- 
tain these books. Look there first. 

2. Study organizations and institutions, that are 
recognized leaders in efficiency work. You can do 
this, no matter if you live on a rural delivery 
route, twenty miles from the nearest village. A 
number of societies, clubs and leagues aiming at 
efficiency will provide you with literature by mail, 
delivering the benefits of membership at your 
door. 

3. Study magazines, on the general topic of self- 
discovery and self-improvement, also on the tech- 
nical phases of your work. Every ambitious man 
or woman should take regularly at least one such 
magazine on the personal side, and one on the 
professional. 

4. Study biographies of the individuals who 
have won a high place in your field of work. The 
stories of their lives you can find in books; in cur- 
rent magazines; in the journals devoted to busi- 
ness, education, art, music, religion, or almost any 

[58] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



other occupation. The stories of great men and 
women now living are far more inspiring than 
those of the past. History is only biography em- 
balmed. There are, moreover, certain names that 
have no predecessors or prototypes in history. 
Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Helen Gould, 
Thomas A. Edison, Luther Burbank, Alexis Car- 
rel, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. 
Rockefeller, Ben B. Lindsey; these are the first of 
their kind. Who are the men or women at the 
head of your profession? Learn how they 
reached the eminence — and resolve to go as far. 

5. Study courses, residence or mail, that offer 
real instruction and cooperation for the achieve- 
ment of your purpose. But apply, first, every pos- 
sible test for discovering the genuineness, author- 
ity and practicality of any course given by mail — 
some are useless. 

6. Study men, around you, above and below 
you, to observe how they surpass you in the way 
of getting things done. Your least paid clerk has 
something to teach you, in manner, method, na- 
ture or character. And if you are an official in a 
corporation or institution, the president is worth 
a library to you as a focus of observation. 

7. Study materials, tools and facilities, begin- 
ning with those required in your own work and 
proceeding till your analysis covers the whole es- 

[59] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



tablishment. Often a poorly-paid worker has 
risen to power and affluence by detecting the leaks 
in expenditure caused by inadequate, unreliable or 
overcostly methods of equipment. 

8. Study the aims, principles, and policies of the 
concern with which you are identified. Look 
ahead five or ten years, and see what the pros- 
pects are for your advancement. At least in 
spirit, the directors want you for a partner, or 
they don't. If they do, get ready for a partner- 
ship ; if they don't, get out. 

9. Study yourself, applying all the known tests 
of vocational guidance, experimental psychology 
and character analysis. You can afford to drudge 
for years if you are on the road to destiny; but 
under any other circumstances, drudgery is a crime. 

10. Study psychology and systems of special- 
ized mind-culture, which tend to build up the men- 
tal and moral qualities in efficiency; such as will- 
power, concentration, memory, optimism, enthusi- 
asm, energy, economy, originality, faith, fore- 
sight, persistence. Each trade and profession de- 
mands the prompt, clear and continual use of cer- 
tain groups of brain-cells, and the men who are pre- 
eminently successful have merely developed a sys- 
tem of " intensive farming " for that particular 
brain tract where they sow their work-efforts and 
industrial ideas. The brain, like the soil, can be 

[60] 



STUDY AND EFFICIENCY 



made to double its output by regular use of the 
right methods. 

Have you exhausted these ten means of effi- 
ciency study? If not, you will find their investi- 
gation a source of immediate interest and of ulti- 
mate reward — mental, social, financial, and spir- 
itual. Nothing in the world can dislodge a mind 
firmly set in the place of its power. To find and 
occupy this place should be the first aim of study. 

EFFICIENCY STUDY LIST 

(For self-improvement and self-advancement) 

DIRECTIONS. If you are well informed, by per- 
sonal inquiry or descriptive literature, on a given subject 
for study, write 5 in the blank space at the right. If you 
have specialized on any subject and feel that you are bet- 
ter informed than the average, give yourself a higher 
grade, with 10 as a theoretical maximum, which, of course, 
you have not attained. If you have ignored any field of 
study mark yourself zero in that field. 

1. Study of books, on hygiene, food science, 

baths, clothing and exercise, finance, econ- 
omy, vocation, scientific management, 
household engineering, etc. 

2. Study of organizations and institutions en- 

gaged in efficiency promotion or extension, 

and offering data or hints on the subject .... 

3. Study of magazines, (a) on self-improve- 

ment in general, (b) on the technical or 

vocational side of your work . ., 

[61] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



5. Study of courses in your business or profes- 

sion, or in vital aids to personal efficiency, 
whose value has been definitely proven . . 

6. Study of men, whether employers, employees, 

clients, customers or business associates, to 
locate and emulate the superior excellence 
of each 

7. Study of materials, tools and facilities, 

whether yours or your company's, with a 
view to increase the quality and speed, and 
decrease of labor and cost 

8. Study of aims, principles and policies form- 

ing the establishment where you work, es- 
pecially in regard to your own future, its 
professional, industrial, and financial out- 
look 

9. Study of yourself, your greatest ambition or 

aspiration, your capacities and drawbacks, 
your past and present advancement, your 
technical skill and personal character .... 
10. Study of psychological principles that help 
you to develop the special powers of mind 
required in your work 



Total equals your grade 
in efficiency study 

NOTE. This is merely a general preparatory outline 
— not a final scheme of study. The author will be glad 
to suggest books, institutions, and other aids to efficiency 
study on application to The Independent Efficiency Serv- 
ice. 

Copyright, 191 5, by Edward Earle Purinton 

[62] 



CHAPTER III 
FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



FOOD is the backbone of fate. 
No other factor in life means so much 
to the support of the entire man. 

Our eating is the first thing we should regu- 
late — it is often the last thing we consider. 
Buying a house, we order the materials in ad- 
vance — a fresh, clean, appropriate supply of 
wood or brick or stone wherewith to build our 
dwelling; buying a meal, we consult nothing but 
a fickle sense of taste, leaving the composition 
and preparation of the food-elements to the igno- 
rance and indiscretion of the cook. Then we ex- 
pect strong, shapely bodies, and rather feel in- 
sulted when the doctor on his next visit asks, 
" What have you been eating? " 

A large proportion of the prevailing unhappi- 
ness, inharmony and inefficiency starts in the stom- 
ach. More lives have been slain in the digestive 
tract than upon all the world's battlefields. 

[63] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Nearly every man who has died a so-called natural 
death before the age of a hundred and twenty, has 
been the victim of gastronomic suicide. 

Napoleon was conquered by a fit of indigestion 
— and thousands of smaller men are being con- 
quered every day by a weak stomach, a jaundiced 
liver, a food-poisoned brain, or an unruly appe- 
tite. 

Buddha, on the other hand, reached his summit 
of power and influence largely through control 
of the pleasures of taste. Indeed the first thing 
a seer usually does, after receiving his vision, is 
to abolish the meal-habits of his ancestors and 
create his own: eating by instinct as the animals 
do, and by reason as men should do. 

The champion runner, pugilist or ball-player 
knows what food does to his body. Therefore 
he goes into training before a contest, following 
a strict dietetic regimen, which would seem a woful 
hardship were he not bent on winning. Is it not 
strange that the athlete, caring but to excel in 
physical prowess, should be the only man with 
sense enough and grit enough to put his meals in 
line with his ambition? Mental and spiritual 
feats of strength are even more concerned in the 
food supply, no man being a giant in his soul until 
he has learned how to eat less and eat better. A 
" divine healer," who is ignorant of the chemical 

[64] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



values of foods, their natural choice and spiritual 
meaning, is an absurdity on the face of him. This 
is not in disparagement of Psychology, but a re- 
minder that Psychology must not usurp the prior 
claim of Physiology. There is only one thing to 
rebuild a physique, and that is food. 

Physically and mentally — and I am not sure 
but morally and spiritually — we are the exact 
sum of what we have eaten. This has come to 
be so widely recognized that the slogan of a great 
manufacturer of pure foods is " Tell me what you 
eat and I will tell you what you are." 

Much of the backwardness and listlessness of 
many women, as regards independent activity, 
might be traced to their choice of edibles. Alter- 
nating between charlotte russe and pickles, they 
are now mushy and collapsible, now irritable and 
hysterical. On the other hand, large numbers of 
men, with their beefsteak dinners and pie-eating 
contests, are as heavy, coarse, lumpish, crude and 
dense as the items they put in their stomachs. 
Most of the apparent differences in sex are but 
the difference in customs with which the sexes are 
surrounded. If men had to cook as women do, 
and women had to work as men do, their eating- 
habits would be reversed, together with those men- 
tal and psychic peculiarities which food precipi- 
tates. 

[65] _ 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



The Eskimo eats oil — and the Eskimo is 
heavy like the walrus. 

The Briton consumes quantities of red meat — 
and the Briton stands for belligerency, with solid 
character back of it. 

The Japanese subsists mainly on rice — and the 
Japanese represents calm endurance; rice being 
starch, and starch being pure energy in reserve. 

The Frenchman revels in sauces and condiments 
— and the Frenchman is distinguished by a vola- 
tile, perfervid view of life, tempered by a corre- 
sponding delicacy. 

The Yankee has no stock menu, but eats every- 
thing in sight — and the Yankee beats the world 
for catholicity, ingenuity, adaptability. 

So on and on and on. Food makes the man, 
the man makes the nation, and the nation makes 
the world, hence food is the world-problem. 

Now there are over a hundred modern schools 
of diet, all of them differing and most of them 
warring with each other. A few years ago the 
need was for knowledge — at present the need is 
for discrimination. It is unsafe to swallow any- 
thing blindly — whether it be a food or a theory 
about food. I have known cases where a well 
person went to a famous dietetic resort for pur- 
poses of study, and returned with the very ail- 
ments that the diet was supposed to cure! Be- 

[66] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



ware of any proselyter, but most of the pepsin- 
proselyter ; for if he cannot find enough lost stom- 
achs to save, he will destroy whole villages of per- 
fectly good ones, in the process of tinkering with 
what Nature never meant human hands to touch. 
You can trust only that food-expert whose ulti- 
mate aim is to free you from his own prescription. 
If he makes a patent food to sell you forever, 
his concern is not your stomach, but your purse- 
pocket. The dietetic ideal is not to search for 
things that will digest, but so to revive and recon- 
struct the digestion itself that any wholesome food 
may be eaten, safely and happily. 

The most reliable conclusions, gathered from 
many of the later schools and systems of diet, are 
here presented briefly. May I first relate a prefa- 
tory incident? 

The other day I found a hard-boiled cynic 
lodged in my path. Immediately I became sol- 
emn, respectful and attentive. To smile in the 
presence of a cynic is to insult him — and I al- 
ways endeavor to be polite. 

The visitor growled thus: " What are you 
anyway — just a fancy writer on efficiency? 
Have you done hard things, do you enjoy the 
health you talk about, are you a good business 
man? Show me your deeds, and I will accept 
your words." 

[67] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Having praised the gentleman for his frank- 
ness (and thereby mollified him), I proceeded to 
tell him a few things. 

I always take a challenge like this; and before 
the cynic left, he delivered an apology and a vote 
of thanks. I mention him here as a proper intro- 
duction for this treatise. 

I am not a pathologist, I do not prescribe in 
acute disease. But for a number of years I have 
been affiliated with health schools and sanitaria, 
have studied and watched the application of the 
leading systems of diet in Europe and America, 
and have doubled my own working capacity 
largely through wise regulation of eating habits. 

Moreover, I have cured in myself a variety of 
chronic ailments, including " heartburn," violent 
headache, liver trouble, dyspepsia, and a pessi- 
mism black as ink. This recital may not be digni- 
fied, but if you want deeds you can't stop for 
dignity. I shall give you not theories but facts in 
the food realm, and the intrusion of this personal 
introduction may be condoned, as a means of en- 
listing your faith. 

No man can achieve his most and best with- 
out a practical working knowledge of dietetics. 
But few men have time to dig this out for them- 
selves, and there seems to be no other way of 
getting it. w The subject has been consistently, 

[68] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



unanimously, neglected in our homes, colleges and 
churches — the first three places where diet 
should be taught. Such neglect is criminal, but 
on a par with many of the idiocies of our bun- 
gling civilization. Only a crazy person would try 
to shovel coal into the works of an automobile, 
or put a gas-stove in an aeroplane. Yet the aver- 
age "business man" treats his stomach, the 
source of his energy and heat, in a manner as 
foolish, as dangerous. The efficiency expert 
grounded on fact is the one who shows you how 
" scientific management " starts in the stomach. 

A well-dressed, thoughtful-looking gentleman 
eats in the restaurant where I have my noon 
lunch. This, in general, constitutes his meal; 
white bread, ice-water, cheese and spaghetti, cof- 
fee, a sweet, heavy pudding or pie, a cigarette, 
a violent discussion of some heated matter like 
politics or business, and a rush back to the of- 
fice. Every item of this lunch is wrong, particu- 
larly as the man I speak of has the coal-black 
hair, sallow complexion, deep-set eyes and narrow 
face of the person with a liver born sluggish. 
When the brother was absent a couple of weeks, 
I did not need to be told that he was laid up with 
a " sick headache " and influenza. I knew it was 
coming. But, as I had not met him socially, eti- 
quette forbade me telling him what folly he was 

[69] . 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



guilty of. Etiquette is a high polish on a frayed 
cuff. 

By the proper method of eating your noon 
lunch, you can get 50 per cent more work out of 
yourself in the afternoon. This one fact, rightly 
impressed on the employees of American indus- 
tries, would increase the value of our trade out- 
put millions of dollars worth a year. 

For weeks before the event of a national horse- 
race, the food of the high-strung pacer is weighed, 
measured and supervised with the utmost care 
by an expert trainer. The minds and bodies of 
the American citizens consume, literally and regu- 
larly, stuff that even a mongrel horse would not 
eat. We buy poison in cans, we order it at the 
restaurants, we take it from the butcher and 
baker, we drink it from the public water mains. 
And the impurity of our daily food-supply is but 
one of several nutritional factors inducing bad re- 
sults. 

It is claimed that nine-tenths of all chronic dis- 
eases originate in the digestive tract. Among the 
disorders largely caused, and largely curable, by 
the food element are these: rheumatism, indiges- 
tion, kidney complaints, liver troubles, gout, 
" colds," headache, skin affections, constipation, 
obesity, sleeplessness, anaemia, certain mental 
and nervous derangements. When we are as 

[70] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



much concerned about our own health as we are 
about the health of our cattle, we will establish 
everywhere scientific food-stores, to supplant or 
at least supplement our unscientific drug-stores. 
Nearly every ill has an appropriate food-remedy. 

Here are some of the hygienic, prophylactic 
and therapeutic properties of common, everyday 
foods. Apples aid peristalsis; pineapples pro- 
mote digestion; peaches are a mild tonic; prunes 
and figs are good laxatives; carrots clear the 
complexion; spinach helps the kidneys; celery is a 
nerve restorative; lettuce tends to reduce in- 
somnia; buttermilk retards old age; wheat, oats 
and eggs are fine for nervous debility. Would it 
not be better, safer, more economical, to eat wisely 
and stay well, rather than lose the time and money 
that illness costs, and besides run the risk of 
being poisoned, overstimulated, enervated, by 
drugs? 

In the realm of food study there are so many 
conflicting theories that the learner is bewildered. 
We do not advise the total adoption of any of 
these theories; but earnestly suggest that the 
reader become acquainted with the experiments 
and conclusions of such nutrition specialists as 
Pawlow, Haig, Schroth, Cornaro, Miles, Metch- 
nikoff, Tanner, Chittenden, Fletcher, Beard, Lah- 
mann, Leppel, Just, Kellogg, Ralston, Macfadden, 

[71] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Christian, Carrington. Every doctor, teacher and 
parent should know every one of these names, 
and what they stand for in the field of dietetic in- 
vestigation. 

We may liken the human body to a house, in 
which the building materials are foods, and foods 
only. Proteids (nuts, eggs, meats, legumes) are 
the foundation stones of our human dwelling; 
starches (cereals) are the beams; sweets and fats 
are the walls; vegetables are the doors; fruits are 
the windows; mineral salts are the nails and 
screws; pure drinking water is the cleaning sys- 
tem that keeps the house habitable, If any of 
these elements be omitted, the house grows un- 
sightly, unsafe. A man whose dinner consists 
regularly of beefsteak, fried potatoes, hot biscuit 
and anonymous pie has left the doors and windows 
out of his human dwelling; the first storm of ill- 
ness — grippe or typhoid — sweeps through the 
house, unhindered. If we ate right there would 
be no epidemics. An epidemic is an epitaph on 
the grave of commonsense. Food unassimilated, 
waste uneliminated, here lies the clue to the whole- 
sale visitation of superfluous disease and prema- 
ture death upon the human race. A man who dies 
before the age of 120 dies in disgrace — he broke 
some law of Nature and is therefore a criminal. 

Let us now state a few principles and methods 
[72] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



of the science of nutrition, in summation of the 
foregoing brief outline. 

i. Choice of food. This depends on age, oc- 
cupation, health, temperament, taste, mental con- 
dition, spiritual unfoldment. Children should be 
given abundance of cereals, which provide the 
building-material for bones and teeth; but in old 
age people should avoid the use of most grains, 
which then, by excess of mineral matter, harden 
the arteries. A soldier on the march may safely, 
perhaps beneficially, consume a pound of chocolate 
and cheese a day; but let a college girl try the ex- 
periment — as many a one is prone to do — and 
she is likely to fail in both her health and her 
studies. A ditch-digger may eat Irish potatoes 
three times a day, and work off the starch man- 
fully; but if a clergyman is guilty of such folly, 
his sermons will be as pasty as a mess of tubers. 
In particular should brain-workers regulate their 
meals on a rational, chemical basis of required 
food-values. The process of thinking, planning 
and feeling uses brain and nerve substance faster 
than physical work wears away muscle and tissue. 
Every brain-worker should select foods rich in al- 
bumin, lecithin, phosphorus and potash, first hav- 
ing learned what these foods are, from a standard 
book on diet. 

A balanced dietary is the best. This means a 

[73] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



wide range of selection, with a hunger so alert in 
the individual that only such provender will be 
taken as meets the real demands of the system. I 
know families where the dining-room is conducted 
on the basis of a cupboard, a refrigerator, and a 
fireless cooker. A varied, plentiful supply of 
wholesome food is kept in these three receptacles; 
and each member of the family, when hungry, 
helps himself to the things he likes best. Then he 
washes his own plate and glass and knife and fork 
and spoon, smiling inwardly at the folly of paying 
custom's wages to a chef, a butler, a waitress and 
a kitchen maid. " What an outlandish way of 
eating " — some habit-slave declares. Well, the 
man who first applied forks instead of fingers had 
just as much trouble getting used to that. The 
great American fault in dining is monotony; few 
households, practically no boarding-houses, escape 
it. Many people actually reckon time from 
" roast-beef day " of this week to " hash day " 
of next. I often wonder why the long-suffering 
dyspeptic heads of families don't organize a 
Peripatetic Pabulum Relief Dispensary, wherein 
the high-salaried officers are trained cooks who 
wander from house to house revealing to the 
feminine contingent periodic new dishes that shall 
be to the men-folks a reason for coming home. A 
full list of all the foods available, in grocery, bak- 

[74] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



ery, butcher-shop, delicatessen, fruit-store, confec- 
tionery and cook-book, should be pasted on the 
wall in every kitchen, and frequently consulted by 
the orderer of meals. For example, we all know 
we are prone to eat too much meat ; yet the stupid 
majority of us, when forbidden meat, go hysterical 
with fear of losing strength. Now the actual 
equivalent of meat is to be found in nuts, or beans, 
or oats, or cheese, or any of several other inex- 
pensive, easily prepared articles of food. A com- 
parative table of such values underlies the rational 
feeding of a family. In general, our menu is 
guilty of an excess of meats, starches and sweets, 
but a deficiency of vegetable fibers, nuts, fresh 
greens, and fruit salts. Result: headaches, colds, 
constipation, auto-intoxication, premature fatigue, 
and all shades of " the blues," indicating merely 
stagnation of the overworked digestive organs. 

The only absolutely pure edibles are nuts, 
cereals, fruits and vegetables having an outer cov- 
ering that must be removed before the object is 
eaten. Even the products of the garden have 
been questioned by some, who hold that the impure 
fertilizer generally used to fructify the soil must 
impair the outcome, and that mineral fertilizers 
are the only healthful ones. As for canned stuff, 
the Pure Food Law is a step in the right direction, 
but because it applies only to goods transported 

[75] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



across State lines it cannot be a thoroughly safe 
guide. When buying things in boxes, jars or tins, 
the wise rule is to find which manufacturer you 
can trust — then stick to his products. If you 
patronize a restaurant, ask to see their kitchen. 
The time is coming when the public eating-place 
that expects to hold favor must keep the entire 
establishment open to the inspection of visitors 
at any hour of day or night. Certain bakeries 
and packing houses are already doing this. Good 
business, as well as good ethics. 

2. Combination of food. A dinner-party 
should consist of foods, as well as people, that 
harmonize — some comestibles being as out of 
place together as an Irishman in a Scotch kilt at a 
German picnic on a Jewish holiday. For example, 
here is a fiendish menu, warranted to upset and 
demoralize the happiest: oysters, noodle soup, 
roast beef rare, French fried potatoes, hot bis- 
cuits, salmon salad, cucumbers, pickles, rhubarb 
sauce, milk, doughnuts and ice-cream. There are 
at least eight separate fights on that bill of fare 
— yet maidens feel aggrieved when prospective 
husbands mildly intimate that a knowledge of cook- 
ing might come in handy! To every husband 
sued for non-support there are a hundred wives 
who should be sued for non-scientific management. 

Meat will go properly with vegetables but not 
[76] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



with nuts; acid fruit with nuts but not with milk; 
cereals with milk but not with turnips or tomatoes ; 
fats and oils with turnips but not with stewed 
peaches; and with stewed peaches, wheat crackers 
harmonize, but hot, white flour biscuits do not. A 
scientific dinner menu for a person in good health 
includes a thick or a clear soup (not a chowder or 
mixed soup) ; a meat, or meat equivalent (lentils, 
nuts, eggs, cheese, grain glutens) ; a starchy 
vegetable (such as potatoes, rice or egg plant) ; a 
succulent vegetable (such as celery, spinach, 
onions, asparagus) ; a salad, of lettuce, romaine, 
cress or the like, made with olive-oil, and lemon 
juice instead of vinegar; and a simple dessert — 
custard, gelatine, souffle, or wholesome pudding. 

3. Preparation of food. Where the different 
methods of cooking a dish are all available, they 
are most wholesome in this order — baking, broil- 
ing, stewing, boiling, frying. Thus a baked potato 
is one of the most digestible things in the world, 
while a " French fry " would discourage any 
stomach but a longshoreman's. Little or no sea- 
soning should be used. In cooking cereals, vege- 
tables and fruits, care should be taken to preserve 
all the original essences and juices, the mineral 
salts, being the most valuable ingredients, not to 
be thrown away with the parings or the water. 
Foods such as apples, onions and celery, that may 

[77] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



be eaten either cooked or uncooked, are in general 
more digestible if cooked, more nutritious if taken 
raw. 

Nuts, fruits, and all vegetables excepting the 
leguminous and those growing underground, 
should be taken as nearly raw as possible; but 
meats and cereals should be cooked thoroughly 
and slowly. When vegetables are boiled, the 
water should be used in soup-stock or elsewhere, 
the liquid thus derived holding more nourishment 
than the fiber which is served on the table. Com- 
posite dishes are undesirable. A mince pie, or a 
clam chowder containing elements perfectly good 
and harmless when uncombined, takes the form of 
an indigestible mass when re-chemicalized by heat. 

4. Schedule of meals. For a brain-worker, 
dinner should come between 6 and 7 in the evening. 
Breakfast should be very light' — at most a soft- 
boiled egg, a bit of toast, a hot drink, and a 
simple fruit such as baked apple, or stewed sauce. 
If such a breakfast seems required, the noon 
luncheon should be even less of a meal — better 
only a nourishing drink, such as zoolak or malted 
milk or hot chocolate. If you find that you can 
well omit breakfast, let the noon luncheon be con- 
fined to eggs or fish, one fruit or vegetable, pos- 
sibly a salad, and a custard, ice-cream or other 
dessert that quickly digests. A luncheon of fried 

[78] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



ham and eggs, crullers, preserves, and coffee takes 
five hours to digest — meanwhile the blood that 
should be in your brain, helping you to think for 
your work and your advancement, is all congested 
in your alimentary tract. Result : liver and brain 
both sluggish. " Three square meals " do more 
to tire a man out in a day than a week's regular 
work would do — if he ate sensibly. 

The great majority of people eat too often — 
even more than too much. This not only en- 
feebles the stomach, but also confuses the mind — 
that sluggish, drowsy feeling so prevalent in the 
afternoon is but a symptom of undigested food. 
To ensure perfect digestion in the adult stomach, 
at least six hours should elapse between the close 
of one meal and the beginning of the next. As 
the last meal of the day should come not less than 
three hours before bed-time, and as normal hunger 
seldom stirs before the middle of the morning, it 
is manifestly impossible to consume three hygienic 
meals in the course of a day. The omission of 
breakfast is the simplest way out. The writer 
has known of hundreds of people, both individuals 
and entire families, who have largely increased 
their health, happiness and efficiency by eliminat- 
ing the early morning meal; and not one to his 
knowledge has ever gone back to breakfast. The 
ideal plan for the many is to have an evening din- 

[79] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



ner, with a light luncheon (mostly fruit) about 
mid-day. Fresh fruit or fruit-juice early in the 
morning is appropriate, and desirable as a sub- 
stitute for a hot breakfast. The only safe be- 
tween-meal food is an occasional dish of pure 
ice-cream. If candy is eaten, it should be at the 
close of dinner, no other time. In general, acids 
belong to the morning, sweets to the evening ; thus 
a large glass of lemonade, refreshing at 9 A. M., is 
only disturbing at 9 P. M. Whenever depressed, 
hurried, worried or fatigued, eat lightly if at all, 
since the meal will turn to poison before it reaches 
the blood. A complete rest, of even five minutes, 
between the close of the day's work and the com- 
mencement of dinner, will greatly enhance both 
the value and the pleasure of the meal. 

5. Place of eating. A good wife will tell you 
that a home is the finest place in the world — to 
get away from. There should be a law forbidding 
a man to eat his three meals a day, every day in 
the year, in the same family dining-room. Ex- 
periments have shown that pleasing, new, sights 
and sounds promote the excitation of the gastric 
nerves and juices; and often a " jaded appetite" 
is but a faded imagination. A bite in the pantry 
cupboard, a snack from a delicatessen, a meal at 
a dairy lunch, a picnic in the woods, a starched and 
frilled table d'hote dinner conjured up by a French 

[80] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



chef — these variations of the eating-habit should 
be interpolated among the dining-room dismalities 
of household routine. In general, one's break- 
fast and noon lunch may best be taken at home 
or in a small restaurant near the shop or office, 
with a view to economy of time, energy and money ; 
while the 7 o'clock dinner should alternate be- 
tween the family dining-room and a high-class 
restaurant, with a view to the highest degree of 
comfort, leisure and enjoyment. Dinner should 
never be eaten in less than forty-five minutes, nor 
breakfast or lunch in less than thirty. Violation 
of this rule means early dyspepsia. 

6. State of mind. If you tell a man, half an 
hour before dinner, that a small fortune has been 
left him, he will eat probably twice as much, and 
everything will taste like nectar and ambrosia. 
But if you tell him his bank has failed, he will eat 
next to nothing, and what he does eat will disagree 
with him. All our thoughts and emotions at meal- 
time influence digestion. • The Bible merely states 
a physiological truth, in preferring a " dinner of 
herbs where love is " to a fatted ox and hatred. 
Only a man deaf and blind can safely eat in the 
average boarding-house ; the views and the visages 
of persons there assembled would wreck the diges- 
tion of a goat. When you seat yourself at dinner, 
make yourself forget your business cares and 

[81] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



household worries — next year you will smile at 
them, why not smile now? 

It is quite possible that gout is caused by grum- 
bling as much as by gourmandizing. For criticiz- 
ing, gossiping or telling sad stories, while at din- 
ner, actually changes food into poison. If the 
bread is burnt, think how good charcoal is for the 
stomach; if the coffee is muddy, reflect that you're 
better off without it anyway; if the meal is late, 
observe the scientific significance of increased appe- 
tite. Then when digestion is well over, raise 
particular fits with the cook! Laugh much, and 
talk little, during meals. Try the experiment of 
eating half the usual amount in the usual time — 
then note improved health, energy and buoyance. 
Always drink when thirsty ; but you will find that 
hunger and thirst seldom operate together, and 
that if you eat plenty of juicy fruits and vegetables, 
masticating thoroughly, you will not care much 
for beverages. Never " coax the appetite " ; 
normal hunger prefers simple foods, and thou- 
sands of students of health can vouch for the wis- 
dom of omitting one, two or a dozen meals for 
the sake of better enjoyment and assimilation. 

7. Enjoyment and companionship. Good di- 
gestion lies half-way between the ascetic and sybar- 
ite, where the truth of the former meets the taste 
of the latter. We should enjoy food thoroughly, 

[82] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



but not as a gratification of the senses. True 
hunger — the kind that revels in a piece of dry 
bread — has largely disappeared from modern 
civilization. The only way to recover it is to stop 
eating, for a meal or a day or a week. The peri- 
odic fasts ordained by the Church were hygienic 
more than dogmatic; but in leaving their dogma, 
we have lost their hygiene. 

As for dinner guests and companions, authori- 
ties hold various views. Animals prefer to eat 
alone ; children are supremely happy when explor- 
ing a jam-jar with no one in sight; men of genius 
flout and ignore the dinner-bell; and among dis- 
incarnate spirits there is probably no such institu- 
tion as a family dining-room. Yet the average 
woman is miserable, eating alone. Whether her 
foolish vanity is wounded because some gentleman 
is not paying her court, or whether her beautiful 
mother-instinct grieves because she has not one to 
lavish food upon, I, being a mere man, would not 
presume to say. But the fact remains that a regu- 
lar lady shrinks from solitaire dining as she would 
from the plague. Why? 

It has been suggested by a keen observer that 
the reason why the average person requires dinner 
companions is that they may assist him in keeping 
his mind off his stomach; and his mind, being a 
heavy, lumpish, sourish kind of thing, would pro- 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



duce havoc, sitting on his stomach. Recalling how 
dense and doleful my own mind used to be, I can 
well understand the reasonableness of this explana- 
tion. For most people, cheery companionship at 
table seems better than solitude — but gloomy 
neighbors are worse than none. A sane middle 
ground, between the hermit who always eats alone 
and the society victim who never does, would be 
this; a sharp division of one's meals into those of 
efficiency and those of hospitality (the former 
being breakfast and luncheon on business days, the 
latter being dinner on business days and other 
meals also on holidays) ; then a habit of taking 
the efficiency meals alone, or anyway in silence, 
but the friendship meals in company with jolly 
neighbors. 

I have increased my physical and mental capac- 
ity for good work probably ioo per cent by revo- 
lutionizing the eating habits that kept my ancestors 
poor and my associates lazy. The human hotbed 
of disease, of poverty, of stupidity, and of sloth, 
is the stomach. Regenerate and re-organize the 
stomach, and you have taken a giant stride toward 
the lofty plane of the superman. 

This chapter, before closing, should mention 
something more vital than food — namely, water. 

If you weigh 150 pounds, more than 100 pounds 
of you is water; and to preserve health, create 

[84] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



energy, maintain buoyancy, you must drink two 
pints of water for every pound of solid food you 
eat. Fresh fruits and juicy vegetables are mostly 
water, therein lies their chief benefit. We should 
make a habit of drinking not less than 6 glasses of 
pure water each day, starting with a glass or two 
on rising, and consuming the rest, between meals, 
during the day. This habit, like every other, be- 
comes automatic, and is no more trouble in the 
morning than washing our face or buttoning our 
shoes. 

Recent experiments by noted European chemists 
and physicians go to prove that a pure, soft, drink- 
ing water, taken in right quantities, at the right 
time and temperature, increases health and vigor as 
follows : It purifies the blood, tones the stomach, 
aids digestion, promotes assimilation, improves 
appetite, freshens the skin, balances the action 
of the heart, assists deep breathing, steadies the 
nerves, relieves the kidneys, stimulates the liver, 
lubricates the colon, wards off disease, postpones 
old age, clarifies the brain, mildly and healthfully 
stimulates the entire organism. 

Water is the best " tonic " known. And the 
saloons persist largely because they sell barrels of 
water in the guise of something else. While the 
habit of " treating " is absurd, and often harmful, 
it is based on a generous impulse and fundamental 

[85] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



need — that of supplying water in a palatable, 
attractive form. Next to air, which is free, water 
is indispensable, and in modern civilization real 
water costs real money. Bottled water is bottled 
health. If you ever have to go to a cafe with 
"the boys," you can still be a "good fellow" 
and yet not a fool, by ordering sarsaparilla, celery 
tonic or ginger ale — which are fairly wholesome 
varieties of doctored water. 

There are now on the market hundreds of soft 
drinks, hot drinks, mineral waters, and other com- 
mercial beverages. Most of these are undesir- 
able, many of them unsafe. 

The prime essential in both food and drink is 
absolute purity. Nothing should be allowed to 
enter your kitchen — whether it comes in a milk- 
pail, a water-pipe, a tin can or a butcher's basket 
— unless first the source of the food has been 
guaranteed pure. Your local Board of Health, 
or a national dietetic organization, should be con- 
sulted on each and every item served at your 
table. 

The subtle factors in the diet problem should 
also be observed. There comes a time, in the 
spiritual evolution of a man, when he revolts at 
the sight of beef. Nor can he have things fried 
in lard, because his finer sensibilities are awake, 
superintending the choice of his palate. Nor can 

[86] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



he eat for the sake of hospitality; regarding the 
body as sacred, he can no more feast in public than 
he could pray at a minstrel show. Feeding the 
body is not enough; the mind, heart and soul must 
be fed at the same time if the body is to be nour- 
ished. And our moods, no less than our instincts, 
should tell us what and when and where and how 
to eat. When we have correlated ourselves, I 
think we shall find that every chemical in the body 
has a corresponding trait or potentiality in the 
soul. Then we shall select our food with the same 
thoughtfulness, earnestness and reverence that we 
now bestow on planning a house of worship, or in 
building a shrine for the purest love in our heart 
of hearts. 

Food is a basic factor in the cure of intemper- 
ance, the prevention of crime, the banishment of 
poverty, the alleviation of insanity, the removal of 
despondency, the reduction of divorce, the amelior- 
ation of childbirth, the improvement of education, 
the rationalizing of religion, the humanizing of 
trade. 

If I were a millionaire, I would endow a Nutri- 
tion Experiment Station, or National Dietetic In- 
stitute, with branches in every college and every 
large corporation in the United States, and with 
facilities to place the results of its research and 
experiment in the hands of every teacher, em- 

[87] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



ployer, minister, doctor, and parent within reach 
of the mails. Such an institution would be the 
finest kind of monument, better and greater than 
a college or a hospital. Rightly founded and 
conducted, it would do more to advance the cause 
of real education, morality, health, prosperity, re- 
ligion, than has been accomplished by any existing 
force in the history of American philanthropy. 

EFFICIENCY FOOD QUIZ 

For Self -Application by Any Man or Woman Desiring 
the Utmost in Health, Energy, Productivity 

DIRECTIONS. For a Yes to any query, put check 
mark before numeral following query. For a No, leave 
numeral unchecked. Add up total of numerals checked, 
and find your percentage in Food Efficiency. 

1. Do you thoroughly enjoy your meals? 4 

2. Do you like fasting, as well as feasting? 3 

3. Do you know the principal functions of food ? . . 5 

4. Are you interested in new dietetic theories and 

discoveries ? 3 

5. Do you know that your regular dietary contains 

in the right proportions the materials needed 
by the human body ? 5 

6. Can you describe the process of digestion, from 

food to blood ? 2 

7. Do you thoroughly masticate your food ? 5 

8. Do you take meat but once a day, or less often? 3 

9. Have you given vegetarianism a fair trial ? . . . . 2 

[88] 



FOOD AND EFFICIENCY 



10. Have you studied and tried the No-Breakfast 

Plan? 5 

11. Do you postpone eating when tired, worried, or 

physically out of condition ? 4 

12. Is it your habit to provide mirth at meals?. ... 3 

13. Do you rest for at least a half an hour after 

dinner ? 4 

14. Do you like fresh fruits, fruit juices, vegetables 

and salads, and use them freely ? 5 

15. Have you barred ice-water, at meals? 4 

16. Have you banished coffee, tea, and other stimu- 

lants from your table ? 3 

17. Can you eat alone as happily and healthfully as 

in company with friends ? 1 

18. Do you refuse all between-meal nibbles, such as 

fruit or candy ? 5 

19. Is your palate trained to know and reject wrong 

combinations, e.g., pickles and milk? . 2 

20. Are you keeping your stomach well by keeping 

drugs out of it? 4 

21. Do you drink at least 3 pints of pure water 

every day ? 5 

22. Have you obtained some authentic pure food 

guide ? 4 

23. Is your family in sympathy with new ideas on 

health, food, and efficiency? 1 

24. If you have any specific ailment or weakness, do 

you know the food cause and food cure?. ... 4 

25. Is your cook at all familiar with modern food 

science? 4 

26. Is your kitchen kept sanitary by approved mod- 

ern methods? 4 



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EFFICIENT LIVING 



27. Do you see how the right food habits may in- 

crease mentality and promote spirituality ? . . . 

28. Are you teaching the science of nutrition to the 

young people under your charge or influence? 



Add the numerals you have 
checked, and approximate your 
grade in Food Efficiency 

Copyright, 1915, by Edward Earle Purinton 



[90] 



CHAPTER IV 
HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



WE are in the midst of a strange phe- 
nomenon. Its like has not occurred 
before in history. 

For centuries we have inherited the idea that 
commerce is selfish, trade mean, finance sordid. 
From the vantage of a church spire, a school ros- 
trum, a home retreat, we have looked on business 
as beneath us. If men, we have worshiped war- 
riors and made politicians our rulers; if women, 
we have rendered homage to poets and priests. 

We have despised, ignored, at best merely tol- 
erated, the shopkeepers among us, the makers of 
merchandise, the vendors of farm products. Any- 
thing not a profession was a confession. Of it 
we were ashamed. 

Now behold what has come to pass. 

The economic gospel of scientific management 
was born in a shop; the saving methods of per- 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



sonal efficiency have taken rise in factories and 
stores ; habits of health and thrift, of energy, loy- 
alty, alertness and skill that our schools, homes and 
churches failed to inculcate are being taught em- 
ployees by the captains of industry; and all Eu- 
rope is looking to the farms and looms of America 
to save what is left of Europe from the cruelty, 
blindness and folly of the professional classes of 
Europe — the professional kings, emperors, talk- 
ers, fighters, and gun-makers. Verily, business 
now hath her innings. 

If I were a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, a clergy- 
man or a housewife, I should pick out the most suc- 
cessful business man I know, and go to school to 
him. That is, provided he would let me, which he 
might do out of pity. For the American business 
man is coming to be the teacher and preacher of 
the world. A silent preacher and teacher? Yes. 
We learn most by watching great men when they 
do not know we are watching them. 

Only a small percentage of the citizens of the 
United States are actively engaged in making or 
selling merchandise. Yet by this small class of 
workers practically all the efficiency methods worth 
while have been evolved. What is the matter 
with all the rest of us? Why don't we produce 
an efficiency system for medicine, for the law, for 
the school, for the church, for the home? Are 

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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



we more stupid, or just more lazy, than business 
men? 

Almost every normal girl wants to marry, and 
have a home. Yet how many girls are taught, 
before marriage, how to organize, furnish, 
arrange, equip and conduct a home? If we threw 
our boys into the world-battle with no collegiate 
or industrial training, we should think ourselves 
monsters of cruelty. We do throw our girls into 
a struggle no less fierce — the struggle to make and 
keep a home all it should be — and we tell them 
nothing of the tasks and trials ahead. Thousands 
of books have been written showing men how to 
run a business; less than a score of trustworthy 
books, to my knowledge, have been written show- 
ing women how to run a household. Are homes 
of less value than stores and factories? 

Business science is a century ahead of home 
science. And the majority of the women of 
America are not even awake to the fact. Further- 
more, the mental and spiritual solidarity of the 
home is fast being destroyed. Who ever hears, 
nowadays, of a whole family going on the same 
picnic, or sitting in the same church pew? Parents 
see their children only at meal time (which, believe 
me, is the worst time to look at anybody). 
Fathers have been reduced to animated bank- 
books. Wives and mothers are relegated to a 

[93] , 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



place of social ornament or civic uplift, while serv- 
ants look after the household — and a long way 
after. Instead of enjoying a really sociable even- 
ing, with home games and apples and gingerbread, 
we starch up and taxi off to a stomach-wrecking 
banquet conspired in by strangers, and costing $10 
a plate for the gilt and plush finish — the food not 
being worth 10 cents. As we grow in wealth, we 
are becoming a homeless race. And experts hold 
that the decreasing marriage rate, the increasing 
divorce rate, the spread of social unrest and moral 
contamination is largely due to the disappearance 
of old-fashioned home life. 

How shall the home be revived and maintained? 
Through a general adoption of the principles of 
domestic science, and a personal acquisition of a 
better understanding by women of the hard prob- 
lems which their men folks are meeting every day. 
At least 40% of a man's efficiency lies in the hands 
of women — his mother, his sweetheart or wife, 
his housekeeper, his clerk or stenographer, and 
these same woman factors in the life of his client 
or customer. On a mere selfish basis, the fathers 
of America should insist that their daughters be 
taught (1) how to earn a good living and (2) 
how to conduct an ideal home. All honor be to 
a few great institutions like the Washington Irving 
High School and Mount Holyoke College, where 

[94] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



a girl is taught something of the science of home- 
making. 

Efficiency depends most on energy. Energy is 
a product of pure, wholesome, abundant food, 
properly chosen, combined and prepared; of sound 
refreshing sleep in a quiet, clean, airy, dark, rest- 
ful room; of loose, comfortable, hygienic clothing 
made of the right materials in a manner that be- 
comes the individual; of daily bath and exercise, 
with conveniences and appliances therefor; of 
rest and relaxation in the evening, away from busi- 
ness and in the company of those you love. These 
things must be had from the home. 

The most valuable mental trait in efficiency is 
probably enthusiasm — a blend of courage, op- 
timism, kindliness and alertness. These qualities 
are manufactured daily as by-products of a normal 
household. The solitude of bachelorhood leads to 
boredom and cynicism. Of the two worst cynics 
I know, one is divorced and the other was never 
married. 

Home is the great power-house of human elec- 
tricity. Our nerves are the wires, our emotions 
the currents, our actions the manifestations of 
light, energy and influence carried from home by 
the radiant stream of ambition and affection. In 
a power-house we employ the highest-priced elec- 
trical engineers, to handle the machinery with 

[95] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



faultless care. But in a kitchen we hire cheap 
maids totally ignorant of the digestive machinery, 
the science of marketing, the principles of house- 
hold economy, hygiene, sanitation, organization. 
Is not scientific management needed in the home 
ever more than in the shop or office? 

Let me cite the cases of two women, both house- 
wives, but as unlike as mud and fire The mind 
of the first is as clear as mud, that of the second 
as clear as fire. 

The first woman lives in the country. She 
works fourteen hours a day — and never seems to 
get a thing finished. She takes five steps where 
one would do. She has no place for anything — 
and keeps everything in its place. Observing the 
thread in her workbasket, you think it is the worst 
snarl you have ever seen, but you change your 
mind when you see her temper. She is faded, 
wilted, nervous, shrill. She has pains and weak- 
nesses and miseries galore. She enjoys poor 
health to the utmost — the utmost being a debauch 
of self-pity. She has grown common to her hus- 
band, and for years has been to her children merely 
a servant-in-waiting. She prides herself — poor, 
deluded creature — on being a " good wife and 
mother." She is good only if all good things are 
unpleasant; which, I opine, we may fairly doubt. 

The second woman lives in the city. She spends 
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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



an hour every morning planning meals, discussing 
problems with her housekeeper, instructing her 
maid about the work of the day. Then she rides 
to her office downtown, where she conducts a large 
law practice, earning thereby the wages of her 
maid and housekeeper, and a good deal more. 
Her evenings are free for social duties and pleas- 
ures, and she has time to spare for human service 
and uplift work. She is in demand for lectures 
and magazine articles. She holds the adoration 
of her husband. She keeps her youth and beauty. 
Women's clubs eagerly accept her advice; and 
this, verily, doth mark the height of a woman's 
efficiency: that other women sweetly follow her 
counsel, even though she be young and beauti- 
ful. 

I know that the majority of farmers' wives, and 
of women in small towns, have not the facilities 
and resources to manage their homes effectively by 
an hour's work a day, and to embark on a public 
career at the same time. I know that the average 
housewife gets about 300 per cent more out of 
the time and money available than her husband 
would. But I also know that from 20 to 40 .per 
cent of the motibn in the average kitchen is lost 
motion, and that one dollar out of every five spenl? 
on the household is wasted. 

A science of home-making, in which every girl 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



should be trained, would include these points, 
among others. 

i. Location. The site should be high and dry, 
with abundance of light and air, in a neighbor- 
hood with a low mortality-rate. If choosing a 
city apartment, look for an eastern exposure, and 
be sure that no buildings are so near as to shut 
off your sunlight. Easy access from the home to 
shops, theatres, churches and other public places 
should be had by surface car, subway or elevated 
road, on payment of a single fare. If members 
of the family work downtown, the time of transit 
should be carefully considered — thousands of 
New Yorkers waste an hour a day in useless travel, 
the time and strain and cost of which would have 
been saved if they had chosen their home with a 
view to the problem of quick transit. 

One's home should be away from his work — 
but not too far away, preferably within good walk- 
ing distance, a half-mile to a mile. This is usually 
possible, except in the largest cities. One reason 
why so many college professors are stupid is be- 
cause they try to work in the house where they eat 
and sleep. This form of psychological hash is 
mentally indigestible — and torpid minds natu- 
rally result. Besides, the most loving wife needs 
to be delivered from the presence of her husband 
for at least eight hours every day; and if the home 

[98] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



is too near the office, he may run over any time 
and interrupt the household regime. An actor is 
a poor husband because never home — a doctor 
is a poor husband because always home. 

Silence is a prime factor in your surroundings. 
Do not plan to live near a street-car line, a rail- 
road, an automobile highway, or a bridge used 
by heavy trucks. And before you engage an 
apartment, visit the same about ten o'clock of an 
evening and count the aggregations of pianos, 
phonographs, mouth-organs, gossiping ladies, 
growling men, wailing infants and polemic felines 
within range of hearing. Then ponder ere you 
migrate. 

2. Sanitation. This includes open plumbing; 
rapid and complete drainage; scientific prevention 
of sewer-gas; abundance of running water, hot 
and cold; use of proper soaps, cleansers and disin- 
fectants, from cellar to attic; modern cleaning 
methods — such as oiled cloths, sweeper, and 
vacuum cleaner, in place of old-fashioned broom 
and feather duster; elimination of carpets, cur- 
tains and tapestries that gather dust and germs, 
and substitution of rugs, mission furniture and 
other commonsense equipment. 

3. Hygiene. A few of the items under this 
head are a home gymnasium ; a heating apparatus 
both healthful and reliable, that keeps the tempera- 

[99] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



ture from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit in cold 
weather; bathroom appliances and conveniences, 
to make the daily bath more enjoyable and expedi- 
tious ; ventilators for all the windows in the house ; 
an emergency case of home remedies, such as mus- 
tard plaster, court plaster, hot water bottle, smell- 
ing salts, fountain syringe, peroxide of hydrogen, 
bandage material and sanitary cotton; a chart or 
booklet always handy on What to Do in Accidents 
and Emergencies ; an address book with names of 
best druggists, physicians and surgeons available 
— these having first been investigated; a lighting 
system (whether of gas, electricity or acetylene) 
that includes soft, shaded, overhead lights but 
full-power, concentrated, desk lamps; a combina- 
tion of color schemes harmonious and restful; a 
good supply of drinking water guaranteed pure — 
either bottled, and certified by chemical analysis, 
or distilled or boiled in your own kitchen. 

We are only beginning to understand the psy- 
chology of color — one of the subtle yet powerful 
aids to cheerfulness and vitality. Recent experi- 
ments have shown a person confined in a room with 
wall-paper and hangings of an uproarious red 
loses temper and grows vicious; while a roomful 
of ultra-violet rays tends to produce temporary 
insanity. No one can estimate how many women 
have gone crazy from looking at the gargoyles 

[100] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



creeping up their wall paper. Science now proves 
— what Nature has always known — that the 
green of the grass and the blue of the sky produce 
the least strain on the optic nerves, and therefore 
induce a feeling of comfort and peace. 

4. Economy. Certain articles for home use 
cost less from mail-order houses, others cost less 
from local dealers. Which are they, in each list? 
At certain seasons of the year, bargains may be 
had regularly — in clothing, furnishings, foods, 
and so forth. Do you buy accordingly? In the 
kitchen, there is a science of utilizing " scraps " 
and left-overs. Have you learned it? A pound 
of beans, of whole-wheat grains, of nuts or of 
cheese, contains from two to three times as much 
pure nourishment as a pound of best steak, and 
costs perhaps half as much. Do you consult mod- 
ern tables of food values in ordering the daily 
meals? 

5. Beauty. Both vitality and morality require 
that a sense of harmony and repose comfort us 
in the few hours of ease accorded to us. In this 
violently practical age, when even schools and 
churches are made for utilitarian purposes, the 
home is the only place where we can satisfy our 
souls with grace of line, symmetry of form, har- 
mony of color, beauty of texture, poetry of sym- 
bolism. We are soothed, or irritated, by the 

[101] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



pattern in the rug, the picture on the wall, the 
fresco or painting on the ceiling, the contour of 
the home against the sky. A cottage costing 
$3,000, planned by an artist for the needs and the 
tastes of the members of the family, is a better in- 
vestment than a $30,000 mansion void of the 
magic touch of refinement and affection. 

6. Relaxation. Hurry is the chief cause of 
worry, and a home is the haven of rest where we 
can smile at our haste, and watch the world go by. 
One of the first rules of a scientific household is 
that nobody's ailments or troubles or fears be 
mentioned in the presence of the family assem- 
blage. Above all, should gloom be chased from 
the dining-room; every dyspeptic stomach was 
first somehow discouraged, and mastication, prop- 
erly attended, comes between mirth and medita- 
tion. One of the sure tests of a real home is that 
the very thought of it relaxes our nerves, minds, 
and muscles, and gently and firmly restores our 
peace and quietness, and faith in the goodness of 
God's great plan. 

7. Education. Much of the criticism now 
being directed at the public schools and colleges of 
America really applies to the home, where scien- 
tific training of the hearts, heads and hands of chil- 
dren properly begins. Parents are' not qualified 
for the duties of parenthood until they have 

[102] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



studied together the principles and methods of 
Plato, Horace Mann, Froebel, William Morris, 
Kneipp, Fowler, Taylor, Madame Montessori, 
Isadora Duncan, and other great pioneers of ra- 
tional education. Are you teaching your children 
to develop their sympathies and sensibilities, their 
lungs and muscles, their hopes and desires and am- 
bitions, along with their brains? Real education 
starts with inspiration, leads to action, and ends in 
satisfaction of teacher and taught. The inspira- 
tion comes from a mother's heart, the action must 
be guided by a father's strength and skill. And 
the parents whose children are their pride were 
teachers even more than parents. 

8. Hospitality. By this I do not mean the per- 
functory exchange of dinner invitations, or the 
needless suffering entailed by a box party at the 
opera. I mean the outflow of heart and overflow 
of spirit which moves you to give a feast to the 
poor, to search out and hearten up the victims of a 
" hallroom " desolation, to pin a flower of hope 
on the garb of mourning, to throw your doors wide 
to the waifs in the street and bid them enter freely 
— slang, dirt, bruises and all. A home is not a 
home until it shelters the homeless. The reason 
is a secret, you must find it out for yourself. 

9. Service. One of the first duties of a mother 
is to make her children proud to wait on her. But, 

[103] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



alas, few mothers learn this until they are too old 
to begin and too tired to care. Each member of 
a family has certain duties and responsibilities to 
every other member. These are usually ignored; 
and often violated, as in the case of a father who 
whips his boy, or of a girl who wears her mother's 
clothes. The founder of the Children's Court, 
after judging 60,000 cases of wayward boys and 
girls, declares that lawlessness is born in the home, 
that parents in general fail to teach the rights of 
property, the obligations of justice and generosity, 
the sense of brotherhood, the rewards of service. 
When " family pride " is changed into community 
feeling, and community feeling grows to be race 
fellowship, we shall have made the home what it 
should be — a starting point for service. 

10. Religion. Parents mostly are guilty of 
either invasion or evasion of the souls of their 
children — they force dogmas on the young folk, 
or they neglect altogether to provide religious 
training. Either attitude is immoral. No man is 
a good Baptist until he sees the good in a Metho- 
dist, and it should be a solemn duty of a good 
Methodist to explain to his children the peculiar 
merits of a good Baptist. I do not think God 
looks at the label on our church, I think He looks 
at the love in our life. Greatness overlaps good- 
ness. And as a man's greatest human love is the 

[104] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



love of wife and children, so does that love, truly 
and wisely and freely expressed, make more for 
righteousness than any other instrumentality on 
earth. 

The first great prophecy of life is that of the 
homing instinct. From the day that a baby girl 
cries for something to pet, and folds her arms in 
ecstasy over a cheap rag-doll; from the day that 
a sturdy lad doubles his fist in anger to smite the 
fellow who dares annoy his chosen lass ; from then 
on, home is being made. 

Marriage is only the builder of home — ro- 
mance is the architect. Long before the wedding 
day, the image of the household to come has been 
hewn from the quarry of desire and polished in an 
alcove of dreams. If not — pity the bridal pair, 
still ignorant as children but lacking the faith of 
children which is better than knowledge. What is 
the precursor of a true and happy home? A 
fierce, insatiable idealism of the parents, for them- 
selves, each other, and the children of them both. 
God's remedy for ignorance is aspiration. Most 
brides know scarcely anything of managing a 
household; most husbands know even less of caring 
for a wife ; yet these defects may be forgiven and 
quite overruled if each loves the other with a pure, 
whole-hearted, unselfish devotion. How stop the 
divorce-evil? Make young people sure it is love 

[105] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



that prompts them to marry. Those who love 
will not, cannot, be separated. 

The world's attitude toward love should be 
earnest, honest, rational, delicate, reverential. It 
is flippant, hypocritical, hysterical, rude, earthy. 
The sanctity of home can be no greater, no purer, 
no sweeter and liner and stronger than the sense 
of worship that real mates feel in the presence of 
each other. Yet people who think they are civil- 
ized hurl rice and old shoes after a wedding as 
though the occasion were a fool's carnival ! If a 
lad and lassie on the brink of marriage have been 
properly taught from childhood, they could no 
more endure a sensational ceremony than they 
would tolerate a feast to honor the conversion of 
their souls ! 

All thought of marriage belongs to the shrine, 
that nothing may illumine but the altar-fire. In- 
stead, we are called upon daily to meet a bombard- 
ment of jest, gossip, slander, smirch, innuendo, 
that will blacken and deface our highest concep- 
tion of home — unless we are militant soldiers of 
idealism. The foundation of home lies in the 
parents' feeling about love. This determines the 
character of the children and of their training. It 
fixes relations with the world at large. It makes 
out of marriage either Heaven or Hell. It is the 
one supreme force in governing life — and the 

[106] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



one most neglected or abused. A series of books 
would be needed to give the subject adequate pres- 
entation; it is mentioned here as a vital factor in 
home-making, which parents must consider if chil- 
dren are to wed happily. In every boy and girl 
old enough to ask questions, there should be awak- 
ened a sense of responsibility to the little ones that 
may come in after-years. Next to livelihood, par- 
enthood should be the vital object of study. 

Home is the crisis of human experience. All 
the beautiful natural things — and all the ugly arti- 
ficial things, cluster here. Home should be both 
natural and subliminal — a history of the animal in 
us and a prophecy of the angel. It usually is 
neither, but a queer medley, excessively, painfully, 
hopelessly human. 

Of all created things, human beings are the 
most egotistical with the least reason for the sad 
plight. Stars shine no matter what happens; we 
are clouded most of the time. Flowers bloom be- 
cause the fragrance is in them to express; we toil 
because somebody tells us to or because we fear 
starvation. Rivers find the sea as God wills they 
should; we follow our natural bent and meet the 
accusation of being " odd." In short, we are 
hampered on all sides by our humanness; life is 
real only as we outgrow it. 

Home is the aisle from the earth that bore us 

[107] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



to the Heaven that beckons us. Instinct and ideal- 
ism make a home; all else unmake it. What we 
feel and what we aspire to, measures the wisdom 
in our family. 

Johnny Jones feels like playing with Willie 
Smith; Johnny's mother says "No; Willie's 
mother is not in our set." Johnny wants to make 
mud pies; mother says u No; you will soil your 
girlish pinafore." Johnny on a summer morning 
hies him to the swimming-hole instead of to the 
school-house; Father whips Johnny for taking a 
bath — then on Saturday night whips him again 
for not taking one. Johnny's sister May would 
like to go bare-foot amid the dewy sparkle of a 
rosy June dawn ; Mother and Father wouldn't hear 
of such a thing — how can their daughter mince 
about in a number 4 slipper with her feet all spread 
out from going shoeless? Johnny and May 
despise flannel underwear with a common vehe- 
ment hatred; when it rasps their disposition, the 
neighbors pharisaically sigh, "Original sin!" 
The kiddies like fresh fruit above all things; but 
a weazened rheumatic old crone hobbling down 
the pike, once relieved her system by this crazy 
warning, " Beware the summer complaint! " and 
the children are stuffed with the meat and pota- 
toes that stiffened the joints of the antique dame. 

These things may seem trivial, but I assure you 
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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



they are not. Where children and grown-ups dis- 
agree the children are usually in the right. Na- 
ture gives them a power of knowing by instinct 
such as no amount of second-hand education can 
produce. Until a child's opinion is respected, his 
desire analyzed, his feeling understood, all ex- 
pectation of a harmonious household must be 
calmly stored away. 

We are proud of our law-makers, whom we 
signally honor as friends of the race and benefac- 
tors plenipotentiary. But the law-maker worth 
while is yet to come; a spiritual giant with a 
woman's heart and a man's brain and this for his 
conquering plea, " A square deal for the child." 
They are mostly waifs, the children; high-born or 
low-born, clad in silks or rags; waifs because un- 
welcome strangers in a house unprepared. Lovely 
dream-messengers from the throne of God, they 
come to bear us tidings of our own lost youth. In 
the presence of children, we should all be humil- 
iated, seeing the faith, love and innocence that 
once belonged to us pictured again in the lives 
committed to our keeping. All that a baby asks 
is room to grow — and a smile of understanding 
now and then. Yet we presume to wield our 
" authority " over children. Can a flower bloom 
underneath a rod of iron? A baby is not the 
most helpless thing in the world; the most help- 
[109] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



less thing is the parent to whom the baby looks 
for sympathy. 

What relation does home bear to efficiency and 
happiness ? 

One as broad and variable as human experience. 

The vital question pertaining to home is not 
whether we have a complete set of kinsfolk, but 
whether, having it or having it not, we are equal 
to our own possibilities. There are people quite 
alone in the world whose lives radiate joy; and 
there are inmates of a household whose presence 
is the signal for a thunder-cloud to gather. What 
can be sourer than a person soured on his fam- 
ily? 

Not the enjoyment of our possessions but the 
use of our opportunities brings happiness. So, 
if we dwell in a palace or in a hall bedroom, we 
create home for ourselves. Anything good used 
as an end turns bad ; anything bad used as a means 
turns good. Whether our abode spells happiness 
or not lies in our knowledge of the language of 
the heart. 

To sweethearts planning their first nest, a gentle 
word of entreaty would be this: deserve all you 
get before it comes. This should be made clear. 
Few girls on the day of their marriage can order 
and cook a wholesome meal, darn a stocking com- 
fortably, manage the help, or engineer household 

[110] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



sanitation. Yet all girls dream of a life-long 
devotion on the part of a husband. Devotion to 
what? Curl papers and a box of rouge ? House- 
keeping is one science, home-making is another, 
parenthood is a third ; no girl should be allowed to 
marry until she knows enough of each to be mis- 
tress of any situation in wedded life. 

Even more preparation is required of the man 
— but of an opposite kind. There is nothing so 
delicate in the world as the feeling of a woman 
whose love nature has just been awakened. A 
mere thoughtless breath pains her to the quick, a 
coarse word or selfish act may leave in her memory 
a scar, that no amount of penance can efface. 
,To be infinitely gentle — and infinitely strong ; 
this is what a lady-love expects of her knight. 
And the first real lesson of life to a man is this: 
nothing counts but to answer the ideal of a loving 
woman. Few men ever acknowledge this — and 
few men are worth considering. 

We must earn spiritual things by physical 
means, and physical things by spiritual means. 
The lassie who dreams must learn to labor, the 
lad who labors must learn to dream ; then each will 
know the beauty and strength of the other, each 
will find the world where it was meant to be, in the 
eyes of one's mate. 

Let us turn to the practical side, 
[ill] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Here is where the discord begins — from the 
sweet Elysian dreams of the wooing to the regular 
duty of hanging out the wash is a far jump and a 
perilous conclusion. But this is the way to test 
the verity of romance — the proof of sentiment 
comes when you mix it with sand, and neither loses 
potency. For genuine sweethearts, the golden- 
wedding day is to the betrothal day as a full-blown 
rose to a mere bud. The strength of the flower 
lies in the earth, the warmth of the earth leaps in 
the flower; they must have each other, or a garden 
cannot be. 

The first thing to impress on each member of a 
family is that home is the trade school of character, 
and the rewards go to the best scholar. Not 
what we get from our people, or even what we give 
to them, determines happiness, but what we are 
in the midst of them and what we help them to 
be to themselves. Home is not a place in which 
to eat and sleep and find fault; it is the one place 
on earth in which we are free to grow. To insure 
this development, the least thing must be con- 
sidered, for the least thing counts. 

Food counts. You might almost turn a hus- 
band into a Frenchman, a Briton, or a German, by 
the way yon feed him. Spicy, beefy, or beery, the 
average man is what he eats. Abused wives 
should learn this before going back to mother. 

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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



The national sin of woman is dyspepsia; because 
every dyspeptic man was made so by a poor cook 
or an ignorant mother. The profession of cook 
should be equally honored with that of clergyman 
or physician; the cook makes the subjects for 
preachers and doctors to work on. And a finished 
job it is. 

Color counts. The tint of a wall-paper can 
make or mar a disposition (wall-paper is a relic 
of barbarism). Line your bedroom with scarlet 
dragons and see how you sleep ; fresco your dining- 
room in a sickly washed-out yellow with green 
polka-dots and you'll need the pepsin handy; put 
nice wide stripes on the parlor wall and visitors 
won't have to be told it's a prison. How many 
brides furnish their different rooms according to 
the use of each? Yet color names character, for 
every color has one of its own. 

Space counts. Not how much a room contains, 
but how little it needs is the test of household re- 
finement. Yet many wives feel neglectful of their 
duty unless they have plastered every available inch 
of space with ornaments unornamental whose only 
function is to be dusted regularly. The house- 
wife's primary lesson — which most of them 
never learn — is to know what is junk from what 
isn't, and to get rid of what is. Fewer pictures 
and better, heavy curtains gone, no carpets what- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



ever, all furnishings made to harmonize, nothing 
allowed save as it has a meaning; this line of ex- 
periment will clear the mind no less than expand 
the pocketbook. 

Furniture counts. As high priest in the sanc- 
tuary of home, William Morris stands first. 
Cheap things cost most. Everything in a house 
expresses the nature of its occupants. People 
built on the simple, comfortable, substantial lines 
of the Morris furniture don't buy shoddy and don't 
live shoddy. Moreover, the less one buys and 
the more one makes, the better one enjoys. The 
atmosphere of Christmas lasts through the year in 
a home where loving hands mold and fashion the 
common things of everyday use. 

Clothing counts. A family's besetting sin is 
laxness. " It's only John and the children " — 
and mother appears in a wrapper that she wouldn't 
let the gas man see her in. " Too hot for polite- 
ness " — and father comes to dinner in his shirt 
sleeves. " Time to wash up for company " — and 
the children get the notion that decency belongs 
nowhere but on dress parade. Company manners 
are a disgrace, proving total lack of self-respect. 
A clean collar at home tells more than royal rai- 
ment in society. 

Talk counts. A tongue unwise or unruly is 
to blame for most family discord. Parents who 

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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



complain that their children fail to show due re- 
spect should ask themselves if they always treat 
the children with kindness and courtesy. One 
hasty word is enough to rob a parent of the adora- 
tion with which a child naturally views its elders. 
Young folks should never be criticized in the pres- 
ence of a third person; they are doing their best 
and they don't want their mates to think otherwise. 
Yet a common practice is to stand little people in 
a row, and lecture them indiscriminately. An- 
other fatal error is to let them suspect any dis- 
agreement between their parents. When Mother 
says one thing and Father says another, each says 
worse than nothing. Loyalty has but one legiti- 
mate expression; to keep those who have wed 
united before the world. Whatever a wife or 
husband does, the other must defend, or the sense 
of oneness will be lost. You may reason this away 
as unethical; but if you have once felt it you will 
know it is right. 

What is a Real Home ? 

A Real Home is a gymnasium, a lighthouse, a 
playground, a workshop, a forum, a secret society, 
a health resort, a cooperative league, a business 
concern, a haven of refuge, a path of solitude and 
a temple of worship. How can one thing be so 
many things ? I'm sure I don't know ; this miracle, 
as all other miracles, must look to love for ex- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



planation. Life itself is a miracle, and love in- 
tensifies life. 

A Real Home is a gymnasium. The ideal of a 
healthy body is the first one to give a child. 
Particularly if the boy should be studious or the 
girl introspective, a regular course in gymnastics 
must precede all efforts to cultivate the mind. It 
won't do the old folks any harm either — how a 
fat and lazy person can live with himself is unim- 
aginable; fat is the unearned increment of age. 
So far as he goes, the athlete is a model man. 
Physique underlies religion. 

A Real Home is a lighthouse. Some parents 
don't know the difference between a lighthouse and 
a house of correction. A lighthouse reveals the 
breakers ahead and shows a clear way past them; 
a house of correction shows nothing but the ire of 
the man that runs it. Children go wrong because 
they have not seen the right. Assume that a child 
wants to be good — and he will if he knows how. 

A Real Home is a playground. Beware of 
the house where you " dassen't " frolic — there 
mischief is brewing for sure. Games have a 
double value — they make good people smart and 
smart people good. Which is more needed, none 
can say. 

A Real Home is a workshop. Pity the boy 
without a kit of tools, or the girl without a sewing 

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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



basket. They haven't learned the fun of doing 
things — and there is no fun like that. More- 
over, the joy of " helping Mother " should take 
its rise in Father — Mother's business is not 
primarily to fetch Father's slippers. Nature lets 
men be so helpless about the house because men 
are most nearly endurable when they act like 
babies. 

A Real Home is a forum. Honest, open dis- 
cussion of life's great problems belongs originally 
in the family circle. Yet how many boys and 
girls feel delight in sharing all their hopes and 
fears and impulses with the parents, who alone can 
wisely direct them? The course in Parenthood 
which every college should require in the senior 
year might well devote a chapter to " The Ques- 
tions the Children Ask." 

A Real Home is a secret society. Loyalty to 
one's family should mean keeping silent on family 
matters — just this and nothing more. But the 
majority of people gossip about their own kin 
ceaselessly and ruthlessly, then blame the neigh- 
bors for painting the story a deeper scarlet or 
uglier black. Family " pride " and " honor " 
should be wiped off the calendar as remnants of 
barbarism. But family respect should make us 
tell nothing save the good of our own relatives. 
Here, as always, a confidence means a confession. 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



A Real Home is a health resort. Mothers are 
the natural physicians. Graduates of medicine 
and surgery will be needed while society endures; 
but for the little ailments of every day, such as 
simple coughs, colds, fevers, pains and stoppages, 
the wisdom of the mother should suffice. The ad- 
vantage of a sanitarium is that it teaches how 
much a home is not; women might learn this with 
profit, but men know it too well already. 

A Real Home is a cooperative league. House- 
holds flourish where the interest of each is made 
the interest of all. Parents cannot desire one 
thing and children another, or brothers want this 
and sisters want that; somebody acts unlawfully 
in every such case. 

A Real Home is a business concern. Order is 
a housewife's hobby. But order without system 
is a harness without the horse. Women are going 
into commerce, to learn how to run a kitchen. 
They don't suspect this, or they wouldn't budge 
a step. Please don't tell them; because what men 
need most is to have somebody beat them at their 
own game. One purpose in Woman's Suffrage 
may be to make men suffer for their shortcomings. 

A Real Home is a haven of refuge. The 
world does this for us all ; it makes us hunger for 
a loving sympathy and a calming, soothing touch. 
The true mother gives this freely, gladly, never 

[118] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



counting the cost. We take the charity for 
granted, seldom thinking of the other side. Who 
is there to comfort the mother in her time of need? 
All women crave a soul fortress, builded and 
guarded by a lover of superhuman strength. But 
the spiritual giant is rare among men. And the 
infinite pathos of earth dwells in the eyes of the 
woman who longs to creep like a tired child into 
the arms of her lover — but cannot, for he would 
not understand. Men are the heroes ? Men do 
not know heroism when they see it. 

A Real Home is a path of solitude. Human 
beings are strangers to one another until they are 
born again. When this rebirth comes, we shall 
soon discover who of our kinsfolk have been our 
very own. t Our spiritual relatives will bid us God- 
speed along the upward climb; the others will 
leave us to ourselves ; all must grant the Heaven- 
urged aloofness. What is life but a smile, a 
tear, and a long good-by ? We may cling to noth- 
ing human, our permanence lies beyond. And the 
strange mortal grouping of souls must in the end 
give way to the awful, glorious change that strips 
the soul bare, whether by death or by illumination. 

A Real Home is a temple of worship. The 
sad eternal cry of the woman heart is to be called 
Madonna. Women expect from men the adora- 
tion they themselves feel toward God. And if 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



every man would strive to be an honest worshiper, 
nothing but the worship of God would be sublimer 
than the worship of Woman. Love is that which 
makes us grow perfect in spite of ourselves. And 
mates learn of God by knowing each other. He 
born strong, grows pure through idolizing Her; 
She born pure, grows strong through emulating 
Him; each builds the character molded by the 
other; till the very human thing called marriage 
attains a loveliness divine. 

HOME EFFICIENCY TABLE 

For the American Housewife and Mother 

DIRECTIONS. If answer is " Yes," write on dotted 
line the number in parenthesis following each question. 
If answer is " No," leave space blank. If neither Yes nor 
No, vary the figures accordingly. Find your percentage 
by adding column of numbers. The average grade is prob- 
ably 45. It should be 95. A Table of complete values 
would include other questions, but this Table gives a fair 
estimate. 

1. Do you take joy and pride in your housework? 

(3) 

2. Can you finish your daily duties in eight 

hours ? ( 1 ) 

3. Have you ever counted and tried to cut down 

the number of needless steps you take in a 

day's work? (3) 

4. When you are tired out, can you rest and re- 

cuperate easily and quickly ? ( 1 ) 

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HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



5. Have you time and strength in the evening 

to enjoy home pleasures with the family? 

(2) ' 

6. Is your home in quiet surroundings? (3) 

7. Do your sleeping rooms have direct exposure 

to the morning sun? (2) 

8. Do you keep daily records of expenses, with a 

modern filing system for reference ? ( 3 ) 

9. Is your grocer the best in your neighborhood 

— have you learned why ? ( 3 ) 

10. Do you plan your meals a week ahead, and 

use all the " left-overs " ? ( 1 ) 

11. Do you order and prepare meals on a scien- 

tific basis of nutritive value? (3) 

12. Can you serve palatable, economical substi- 

tutes for meat? (2) 

13. Do you know the signs of fresh meat, fish, 

eggs, fruits and vegetables? (2) 

14. Has your drinking water been guaranteed 

pure by expert analysis? (3) 

15. Do you buy food, clothing, furnishings, etc., 

on a scientific system of economy? (3) 

16. Have you studied at least three modern 

schools of diet (such as the Lahmann, the 
Lust, the Christian, or the Kellogg sys- 
tem) ? (3) 

17. Have you read at least three standard books 

on domestic science and household econ- 
omy? (3) 

18. Do you belong to a woman's club? (3) 

19. Are you a member of the Housewives' 

League? (3) 



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EFFICIENT LIVING 



20. Do you subscribe for one or more magazines 

devoted to home-making? (3) 

21. Do you spend a day away from home at least 

once a month ? ( 1 ) 

22. Do you take a vacation from your family of 

at least two weeks every year? (3) 

23. Have you installed a modern cleaning system, 

from efficient soap to vacuum cleaner? (2) 

24. Is there an emergency chest in your bath- 

room? (1) 

25. Are all your windows equipped with hygienic 

ventilators? (3) 

26. Is your lighting system powerful, while rest- 

ful to the eyes? (2) 

27. Have you studied the hygiene of dress? (2) , 

28. Is your doctor a teacher of health — not just 

a prescriber of drugs? (3) 

29. Do you receive regularly the monthly list of 

publications of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture? (2) 

30. Are you thoroughly informed on vocational 

training? (3) 

31. Do you know where and with whom your 

children play? (3) 

32. Can you answer all your children's questions, 

without evasion or embarrassment? (3) 

33. Do you conduct home discussions on great 

questions of the day? (2) 

34. Are you teaching your children how to earn, 

to save and to spend money? (3) 

35. Can all the members of your family use their 

hands and brains equally well? (3) 



[122] 



HOME AND EFFICIENCY 



36. Do the pictures and decorations in your home 

express sound aesthetic principles? (2) 

37. Have you developed a saving sense of hu- 

mor? (3) 

38. Are you giving your children systematic re- 

ligious or ethical instruction? (3) 

39. Do you recognize the mistakes of your early 

married life and are you training your chil- 
dren to prevent or avoid them? (3) 

40. Is your home a haven for the poor and friend- 

less? (3) 



Add up column 
and approximate 
your grade in 
Home Efficiency. 

Copyright, 1914, by Edward Earle Purinton 



[123] 



CHAPTER V 
WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



WORK is the common avenue to all the 
uncommon things. And the uncommon 
man is he who follows work to this end. 

Of all the paths to greatness, work is the most 
obscured; of all the paths to goodness, work is 
the most maligned. Not workers and shirkers, 
but watchers and stumblers, compose humanity; 
for the man who has visioned opportunity can 
never work enough. The whole question of labor 
is, whether we lead or must be led. In the van 
we exult, in the rear we despair. 

The curse laid on Adam was not having to 
work, but feeling that he had to work. And they 
who most nearly resume the stature of gods have 
changed their feeling about work from compul- 
sion to volition. The difference between genius 
and mediocrity is that genius looks at work 
through a telescope, mediocrity through a micro- 
scope; the one sees only possibilities, the other sees 

[124] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



only limitations. Cure for the man who doesn't 
like his job: Find what it leads to. It is the 
little man who doesn't like his job; the big man 
makes himself like it, or gets out. 

Efforts to uplift the " working classes " gen- 
erally fail — for two reasons ; there should be no 
" working classes "; and the position they occupy 
is the highest attainable. We should all work a 
little, play a little, learn much, and love to infinity. 
But for ignorance and selfishness, the worst ex- 
ample is the man with nothing to do. Whoever 
is not in the working class has never learned his 
letters in the alphabet of life. We are just as 
wise as we love to work. And the philosopher, 
yogi or metaphysician who dwells apart, scorn- 
ing the activities of the multitude, can teach us 
nothing except how little he knows. The very 
rich, and the very learned, must find salvation in 
a cottage, where the wealth and understanding of 
the heart may be given full play. It is not work 
that frets, wearies or disappoints; it is having no 
one to work for. And the most abject pauper on 
earth is the millionaire who has lost the spirit of 
devotion. If we love we must work; but if we 
love we do not know that we are working. Thus, 
to possess an ideal, affection, or inspiration that 
impels us forever on, is to gain the rewards of 
work without having known the penalties. 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



Work in its normal aspect is the focus of the 
entire man on a fixed goal. Those who find them- 
selves lacking promotion, or a position, may dis- 
cover the cause in their own divided purpose, 
irresolute will, scattered energies, and unformed 
ambitions. It is better to aim somewhere and 
get nowhere than to be put somewhere and stick. 

The drone is not the man who does nothing — 
he may be a royal mendicant in disguise. The 
drone is the man who does just enough to " hold 
his job." Everywhere in the commercial world 
he is the unmitigated evil. Banish him and you 
change the market-place from Hell into Heaven. 
No employee should be taken into a business, until 
his motive has been analyzed and judged. If his 
aim is right, he should be given a personal interest 
in the concern; if not, he should be shown the 
door. Aimless employees are the universal in- 
cubus of trade. And the surprising thing is that 
employers do not see the folly of treating their 
help as machines. The Golden Rule is the most 
practical business guide to be found; if it had 
appeared under non-religious auspices, the world 
would have adopted it long ago. I sometimes 
wish that names could be totally abolished; what 
hampers truth is always the name by which it is 
called. Prejudice clusters in words, but in feel- 
ings lie sympathy and understanding. 

[126] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



The fundamental principle regarding work may 
be given thus : The end of occupation is not to 
earn a living but to mold a life. And the few 
who apprehend this are, strangely enough, the men 
who amass great fortunes. Work whose only end 
is money is the least profitable of all imaginable 
things. The one form of suicide sanctioned by 
law is to " work for a living." No man has 
found himself until he must work when he doesn't 
have to. The compulsion, financial, social, men- 
tal, under which the majority labor will be neces- 
sary until every human being has within him a 
self-regulating, self-renewing, motive for working 
up to his limit. Slaves are those who are forced 
to work, sovereigns are those who force them- 
selves. The ten-dollar clerk who eyes with envy 
the apparent freedom of the millionaire employer 
is pitiably ignorant; for a thousand constraining 
powers hold the man of wealth — each more inex- 
orable than the gaze of the clock, which alone 
governs the employee. It is not work that en- 
slaves, it is a complaining spirit back of work. 

Labor is delight — or degeneration. And the 
man who toils grudgingly insults the whole world ; 
his employer, his fellows, his Creator, and his 
own soul. If a law could be framed compelling 
every one to enjoy his occupation, or to live on a 
pension from the State — I believe the State would 

[127] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



be actually richer. Incidentally, the pauper-sys- 
tem should be wiped out. Indigent men, women 
and children should be taught some useful occu- 
pation, and thus be enabled, at least partially, to 
support themselves. No man is too aged or in- 
firm to be self-respecting. And self-maintenance 
is the keystone of self-respect. 

Work and drudgery should be at the opposite 
poles. Xo men who achieve, work is play and 
play is work. So they are playing most of the 
time. President Taft and ex-President Roosevelt 
are temperamentally as diverse as the arctic re- 
gion and the equator. But when they play they 
are alike — they both work harder than the day- 
laborer will who gets paid for it. Indeed, the 
purpose of rest is to exercise faculties and powers 
usually dormant. Fatigue is unnatural — like 
everything else that has to be cured. The loss of 
enthusiasm is the beginning of fatigue. And if 
our working-day could be normally regulated, we 
should quit our job the moment we lost enthu- 
siasm. 

Feel — think — plan — hope — work — wait 
— enjoy; this is the true order of human expres- 
sion. Yet how many observe it? The poet feels, 
the metaphysician thinks, the schemer plans, the 
cheer-up philosopher hopes, the slave works, the 
idler waits, the aristocrat enjoys — and not one 

[128] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



of the lot is satisfied. Each blames somebody 
else for his own incompleteness. 

What this world most needs is to make its 
philosophers workers, and its workers philoso- 
phers. The rarest thing is to blend vision and 
vitality; if ever a seer becomes a captain of finance, 
he will do more to uplift the world than all 
prophets have done thus far since the Creation. 
Work belongs halfway between Poetry and Phi- 
losophy ; Poetry should greet it but Philosophy say 
good-by. Work, though, is usually friendless, 
with the scorn of the poet and the exhortation of 
the philosopher adding to the misery. What we 
look down upon is what we could not see over. 
Till Poetry has done things, it is mere pretense. 

The one relationship of universal importance 
is that of work to the brain, heart and soul of 
Man. Work that interests and exercises the 
whole of us means joy, progress, contentment, suc- 
cess. Work that leaves a part of us unawakened 
and unemployed means anxiety, weariness, rest- 
lessness, failure. Drudgery is working from duty 
instead of desire, the cure being to instil a fresh 
motive into one's occupation. The way to make 
work enjoyable is not to lessen duty but to increase 
desire. 

Labor holds three prime factors: motive, 
method, and cooperation. Motive belongs to the 

[129] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



soul, method belongs to the brain and body, co- 
operation belongs to the heart. And if any one 
of these be lacking, work fails to satisfy. 

Motive should be altruistic. The scientist 
delving in search of truth; the artist lost in the 
creation of something beautiful; the mother ago- 
nizing and exulting to give life to her children; 
these know why they toil. 

Method should be selfish. The ideal business 
man is curt to the point of rudeness; and he has 
no use for his friends and relatives in the office. 
Business and friendship positively do not mix. 
Friendship is a luxury, business a necessity; and 
you need a great deal of the latter to afford a little 
of the former. Next to habits, friends are the 
most expensive things. 

Cooperation should be give-and-take. As a 
rule, those who endeavor to practise it are too 
unselfish. You can't give until you have. You 
don't have until you're an egoist. Therefore the 
instinct of grasping is pre-angelic as well as pre- 
historic. Communities and brotherhoods founded 
on the share-alike principle go to pieces because 
nobody had anything worth sharing in the first 
place. Only individual successes cooperate suc- 
cessfully. Fight for something, and get it — 
then trade it off or give it away; that is how to 
keep your interest in life perennial. 

[130] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



The purpose in work should be feminine, the 
system should be masculine, the affiliation should 
be both. In those who do not love work, the sym- 
metry is lacking. What lessons in life are worth 
learning, men must learn from women, and 
women learn from men. Put the heart of the 
home in the office, put the head of the office in the 
home; then if you add to each the body of the 
jungle and the soul of the air, you will have an 
existence approaching that designed by the Maker. 

Work should mean opportunity. Business and 
marriage are alike in that each betokens not the 
end but the commencement of things. A girl 
whose ambition is to get married equals in folly 
none but the youth whose ambition is to get a job. 
An easy berth is the hardest to hold. And the 
person who tries to take advantage of his position 
has a more difficult task than the one who sees and 
follows the aisle of opportunity extending down 
the vista of the years. The less you look at a pay- 
slip, the larger it grows. 

Work should mean education. The honest 
wage-earner is really being paid for developing his 
own character. He learns punctuality, obedience, 
accuracy, insight, thoroughness, good-nature, sys- 
tem; in short he gains the ready knack of using 
himself, at the expense of his employer. The 
heart of education is to know your job. 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



Work should mean independence. The man 
who slaves is merely bound by his own limitations. 
And the oppression of the many is to free them 
of indolence, weakness, irresponsibility and self- 
indulgence. When your purpose is your clock 
you will need no office-hours. 

Work should mean loyalty. There is no higher 
quality in human nature than allegiance to a prin- 
ciple. And the principle of honesty demands 
that every worker be true to his employer — no 
matter what the employer may be as a man. In- 
cidentally, a new commandment for this age 
would be : take no money from him you cannot re- 
spect. Some wives could apply this to advantage. 

Work should mean sincerity. No man fails 
who really believes in what he does. And the 
chance to act out one's belief is worth more than 
all the Presidential salaries on earth. All neces- 
sary toil is humanitarian, and the consciousness 
of being helpful should inspire every toiler. 

Work should mean sentiment. Not sentimen- 
tally — logically. Power is electric, and the 
human machine operates best under the force of 
elation. The worker never wearied, oppressed or 
dismayed, is the woman absorbed in caring for 
the one she loves most. Nothing but affection 
warrants execution, nothing but romance justifies 
reality. 

[132] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



Work should mean health. The so-called 
" lower animals " in their natural state are never 
sick. Each does what Nature intended. From 
the ant to the elephant, each determines occupa- 
tion by instinct. The few men who are wise 
enough for that, give pills the go-by. 

Work should mean fate. And it always does. 
What we enjoy today we earned yesterday, pos- 
sessions are not enjoyable otherwise. Nothing 
affects us but what we effected. Destiny is doing 
the next thing with a heart of fire and a will of 
steel. 

Work should mean religion. Sundays furnish 
the text of goodness, but week-days the illustra- 
tion. And we, being children, look at the pictures 
first. The first sight of a man's face Monday 
morning is how God measures his Sunday prayer. 
Consecration vitalizes, truth empowers, light fruc- 
tifies and love garners. Failure is, primarily, 
spiritual death. 

Work is the highway to happiness. There 
are other ways — health, wealth, pleasure, fame, 
friendship. But these are only byways; work is 
the highway. The one sure way to be happy is 
to learn to be happy in your work. 

Now, two people may walk the same road, yet 
one find joy and the other find woe. A restless 
urchin,, bent on raising trouble, scuffs up the dust 
[133] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



of a country lane on a June morning; while a 
grown philosopher treads the shady path along- 
side, breathing in the fragrance of the meadow 
blooms, and refreshing his soul with a clean vision 
of the sun-swept horizon hills. 

On the great thoroughfare of human work 
there are clouds of dust where there should be 
the fine play of well-groomed muscle, the earnest 
gaze of well-directed mind, the deep breath of 
wholesome inspiration, the fragrant sense of con- 
genial surroundings, the buoyant step of a moun- 
tain-high purpose. We have robbed work of the 
romance with which the Creator endowed the till- 
ing of the first acre, the building of the first home. 
And to restore and maintain this energizing spirit 
of hope, joy and pride in the worker is the first 
and fundamental task of the efficiency expert. 
Your machine is second — your man is first. 

A good business psychologist, entering the usual 
store, office or factory, chokes. He finds the air 
filled with clouds of moral dust — the dust of 
complaint, the specks of error, the sand of fric- 
tion and dissension, the germs of envy, jealousy, 
greed, indifference. And to clear the mental ma- 
chinery of employer and employees from this 
whirling volume of psychic debris is the duty of 
supreme necessity and supreme difficulty. 

I am not talking theory — I am talking science. 

[134] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



There are no costly, needless labor troubles — 
such as strikes and anarchistic rebellions — 
among the employees of the United States Steel 
Corporation. Why? Because this company, 
the largest in the world, has fixed in the minds 
and hearts of the workers the right kind of feeling 
toward the proprietor, toward the business, toward 
the future of the worker in relation to the busi- 
ness. The first essential in efficient work is good 
feeling and lots of it. 

I don't mean sentimentality, or effusiveness, 
or lax discipline. I mean just fine team work, 
based on mutual understanding, sympathy, confi- 
dence, purpose, cooperation of employer and em- 
ployee. 

Here is a case in point, showing how feeling 
underlies efficiency. A business man had a clerk 
who was jealous, suspicious, fault-finding, rough, 
and so " temperamental " that he couldn't stay on 
the same job more than half an hour. The em- 
ployer went to a business psychologist, who ad- 
vised thus: " Plan some day to have this clerk 
remain when the others have gone, without their 
knowing why he stays. Then take him into your 
confidence. Tell him some of your aims and a 
few of your difficulties. Show him how his loy- 
alty, cheerfulness, enthusiasm, steadfastness, will 
help you and him and the business. Make him 

[135] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



see you need his support, give him some special 
duty or responsibility, and let him report occasion- 
ally to you in person. Demonstrate to him how 
his work should be done — then assure him of 
larger work ahead. In short, treat him not as a 
slave in a treadmill, but as a younger brother." 

The employer took the advice. In a few years 
this clerk became the most efficient worker in the 
place, a model of courtesy and cheer, a plow- 
horse for endurance, and the president's mainstay 
along various lines. The lazy or unruly em- 
ployee makes the best worker, when you touch the 
right spring. 

I emphasize this matter first, because it is most 
vital. We have now abroad a young army of 
efficiency engineers; who will set your desk near 
your base of supplies and arrange your tools to 
conserve your motions ; who will teach your office 
boy how to fold circulars in one move instead of 
three ; who will buy your materials with economy 
and despatch; who will audit your books and save 
your postage stamps and do other laudable things. 
But the real expert is the rare one who will first 
show you how to handle your men — how to cre- 
ate in them loyalty, confidence, ambition, tact, in- 
itiative, will power, endurance, concentration. 
This is the vital issue. 

Now let us be as cold as steel — as emotionless 

[136] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



in method as we are exalted in purpose. A man 
who jokes or jollies or dreams or dawdles or 
grows angry in the office is no man, but a mollusk. 
If a clerk makes a mistake and the " boss " yells 
at him, the boss is more inefficient than the clerk. 
If your competitor calls you a liar, and you get 
mad and call him a liar, you are also a fool — 
besides being probably a liar for calling him a liar 
when he calls you a liar. If your debtor won't 
pay, and you brand him a thief, you lose both your 
money and his trade. If your typist (doing her 
best with your mangled dictation) seems slow, 
and you tell her she is slow, you aggravate her 
slowness. In short, to lose control of one's emo- 
tions during business hours means, in the long run, 
to lose dollars and cents. 

Be earnest, but be calm, no matter what hap- 
pens. I have seen a man learn to treble his day's 
work by systematically shutting out all feeling 
during office hours. What fatigues and annoys 
us is not our work, but the mental friction, nerv- 
ous strain, muscular tension, emotional wear-and- 
tear, which we allow to accompany our work. A 
real man is always a machine while on the job — 
and never a machine at any other time. Recipe 
for efficiency : be a plodder by day and a poet by 
night. Do your planning, your dreaming, your 
resolving, when silence and solitude open the mind 
[137] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



for great thoughts and purposes; then appear to 
the world just an ordinary business man, with 
nothing unique about you to rouse the neighbors' 
suspicions. 

Now for some practical methods — which 
would apply to any ambitious man or woman, 
from the President of the United States to the 
woman who scrubs a floor. 

Such a plan is wofully needed. When we be- 
gin to be civilized, in a thousand years or so, we 
shall look back and say pityingly of the fossil re- 
mains of the twentieth century: "The remark- 
able thing about those barbarian tribes was that 
they never really learned how to work. Conse- 
quently, their strange communities were infested 
with paupers, criminals, tramps, billionaires, po- 
licemen, reformers, and other abnormal creatures 
developed through industrial ignorance." 

Knowing how to work is knowing how to do 
and be everything worth while. For a national 
scheme of productiveness, satisfying labor would 
include a science of health, a science of education, 
a science of eugenics, a science of economics, a sci- 
ence of finance, a science of commerce, a science 
of service, a science of peace, a science of religion. 
We are beginning to apprehend the truth about 
labor. A New York high school teaches girls 
how to sew and cook and sweep and care for 

[138] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



baby; a branch of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation offers vocational training; a church has 
opened an employment bureau ; a chain of domes- 
tic science clubs tells women how to conduct a 
household; in a few cities colleges are uniting with 
factories, to give students real shop work while 
studying theories in books. Praise be, for all 
this. 

The application? Here it is. 

Our first move toward industrial efficiency is to 
classify the duties, responsibilities and opportuni- 
ties in our day's work. Take a large sheet of 
paper and rule off three columns. In the first 
column write down each thing you are expected to 
do, as your business every day. In the second 
column write down the occasional special duties 
of your position that are essential but irregular 
in time. Before approaching the last column it 
will be necessary to think deeply. For in this 
column should be listed all the means of improve- 
ment, advancement — such as reading, thinking, 
watching, planning, doing for yourself. This kind 
of threefold efficiency scheme raised Lincoln from 
his cabin to £he White House. It will help any 
man to grow. 

Take the office boy, for example. We have 
most of us been through the office boy stage, 
therefore can apply his case to our own — the 

[139] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



principles being the same. His chart merely illus- 
trates our method. 

I am fully aware that an office boy who could 
indite and utilize the appended Scheme would not 
be an office boy, but a combination of Solomon, 
Darwin, Caesar and Christopher Columbus. 
However, so many readers of our suggestions 
have asked for something to do for larger effi- 
ciency, that we can risk the strain on the hypothet- 
ical office boy. 

It is important that the best, quickest and easi- 
est methods of work be discovered and applied in 
the order here given. The best method will 
please your patron, client or customer; the quick- 
est method will please your employer; the easiest 
method will please you. Do not try to please 
yourself first. The royal carriage to achievement 
runs on Thoroughness Avenue. I pity the man 
who has never learned the fun of doing things 
right. Irksomeness is shirksomeness. 

The average worker wastes half his time and 
energy on trifles: partly because he has never 
classified and apportioned his daily duties; partly 
because he has never been taught his own possi- 
bilities for great things, never learned to find or 
make opportunities. The purpose of the Scheme 
is to make us do small things better — then have 
strength and leisure for great things. 

[140] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



The advantages of the Efficiency Work Scheme 
will not appear all at once. But if you prepare 
and follow out the Scheme, you will note the bene- 
fits arising gradually. May we suggest how to 
proceed? 

Column One. You know what you must ac- 
complish every day, to satisfy the demands of 
your position. But to make sure, go to your em- 
ployer, foreman or department chief and say to 
him: " Mr. Purinton tells me I can improve the 
quality and quantity of my work. May I inves- 
tigate the subject and have you any advice to 
give? " If your chief comes to — having fainted 
with surprise — he will doubtless be glad to help 
you make out the list of regular daily activities 
and responsibilities. When Column One is fin- 
ished, put the items on your morning schedule and 
all your strength into carrying them out early in 
the day, so as to leave an hour or two for self- 
improvement in the afternoon. 

Column Two. In addition to the special odd 
jobs that fall to most of us, for which time must be 
allowed, there are little services to perform in 
easing up the toil of our associates who have not 
learned efficiency methods. Not only must the 
man of destiny be so eager for his own work that 
a team of wild horses couldn't hold him back — 
he must enjoy helping the business by lifting along 
[141] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



his weaker brother. So put in your list of irregu- 
lar duties — and believe me, this is most irregu- 
lar — the duty and pleasure of looking around the 
place for extra jobs, to relieve your neighbor and 
improve the output of daily cheer. So far as 
possible, get the entire list of Column One and 
Two in your mind — better on paper, to check 
off — the very first thing each morning. Such a 
habit clears and strengthens the mind, quickens 
the muscles and calms the nerves. We are vexed 
not with the care of toil, but with its chaos. 

Column Three. The value of a position is not 
in its possession, but in its preparation. Only as 
it trains you for larger responsibility is it worth 
having. How is your work replete with oppor- 
tunity? This may be made a fascinating study, 
and the most profitable in the world. When I 
finished college I could do but one thing to earn a 
living — and that one thing my health forbade ! 
I spent a year investigating the science of indus- 
trial opportunity — and from that year to this, 
at least nine doors to professional advancement 
have stood wide open, all at the same time! 
Learn how your position may guarantee your pro- 
motion — and list the open doors in Column 
Three. 

Now for the B, Q and E part of your Scheme. 
How are you to know the best, quickest and easi- 

[142] 



WORK AND EFFICIENCY 



est methods? How secure the tools, implements 
and devices for economy of labor, time and 
money? 

First. Go to your local newspaper office and 
ask to consult a copy of an American Newspaper 
Annual and Directory. Under the " Index to 
Class and Trade Publications " you should find 
your own business or profession. Turn to the 
list of magazines covering your field; send for a 
sample copy of those having largest circulation 
(enclosing say fifteen cents for each) ; take an 
evening or a Saturday off and go over the adver- 
tising pages, checking all items that appeal; write 
to the advertisers — then ponder the results. I 
know cases where ideas thus gained, entirely apart 
from sales, have revolutionized a business. You 
can be morally sure that somebody, somewhere, 
somehow, is doing your kind of work better than 
you are. Locate him in the editorial or advertis- 
ing pages of your trade journal. 

Second. Look up the libraries near you for 
books along the same line. In addition to the 
public libraries, there are circulating libraries 
which loan books on vital themes for a nominal 
sum. Get in touch. 

Third. Form the habit of doing at least one 
of the exercises to be given in each chapter of this 
series — and resolve not to read the chapters till 
[143] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



you have an hour's leisure to work out the chart 
or test or table. The Charts to follow, covering 
food and drink and study and play and thought 
and cash and home, all bear directly on " Work 
and Efficiency." Each will suggest something for 
you to do — not merely a line of thought to look 
at and forget. Learn to read these chapters with 
a notebook and pencil at hand, to make your own 
observations and plans while you read, then to act 
forthwith on such ideas as appeal to you. If you 
do this, a year from now you will be a different 
person. 

The day is coming when the labor of man's 
body, the light of his mind, and the love of his 
heart, will be scientifically merged to make of his 
work a series of masterpieces. When that day 
comes, man will be efficient. 

EFFICIENCY WORK SCHEME 
(for an average office-boy in a small concern) 

i. Regular 2. Occasional 3. Professional 

Daily duties for Jobs irregular in Opportunities for 
employer time self-advance- 

ment 

Open office Run errands Decide on ulti- 

Sweep, dust, ven- Answer telephone mate position 

tilate Help other clerks in firm 
[144] 



WORK AND ] 


EFFICIENCY 


Sharpen pencils 


Announce 


visitors 


Go after it 


Fill ink-wells 


Operate i 


nimeo- 


Study trade-pa- 


Sort mail 


graph 




pers and libra- 


Prepare memo- 


Seal and 


stamp 


ry books 


randa 


letters 




Watch methods 


Take special or- 


Fold circulars 


of " man high- 


ders from the 


Tie parcels 


er up " 


chief 


Serve as 


general 


Ask questions 


Keep hands and 


handy man 


freely 


clothes clean 






Work overtime 


Arrange desk for 






Learn to eat for 


leaving 






energy 


Close office 






Go to night- 
school 

Try to please cus- 
tomers 

Make all employ- 
ees like you 

Look as though 
you enjoyed 
work 

Learn something 
new about the 
business every 
day 


Number Effi- 


Number 


Effi- 


Number Effi- 


ciency Marks 


ciency Marks 


ciency Marks 


Actual Ideal 


Actual 


Ideal 


Actual Ideal 


B 









Kl 

E 











[145] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



INSTRUCTIONS. Let B = best possible method 
of work, Q = quickest, E = easiest. Make out three- 
column list of your own, coresponding to office-boy's; put 
* initial B, Q or E on margin of each task for which you 
know you are using the best, quickest, easiest methods, 
then count your B, Q and E totals, and compare actual 
number with ideal, which would be of course three in- 
itials for each task. Don't mark down B, Q or E unless 
some authority has told you the method you employ is 
best, quickest, easiest. You can't judge your own method 
— an expert must do it. 

Having found which items remain to be checked with 
efficiency marks, how are you going to secure the efficiency 
which will warrant you in filling in the vacant spaces? 

Copyright, 1915, by Edward Earle Purinton 






[146] 



CHAPTER VI 
PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



LIFE to a real man is but a series of hard 
jobs well done. The strength to begin 
them and endurance to complete them 
grow in the relaxation periods between. There- 
fore, amusement underlies efficiency. 

Mental efficiency means alertness, decisiveness, 
method, forethought, fair play — all of which de- 
velop in the right kind of sport. 

Industrial efficiency means loyalty, honor, enthu- 
siasm, training, perseverance — which are tfaits 
of team work in a good game. 

Moral efficiency means a high aim, a resolute 
backbone, a clean, strong body and a buoyant, 
brave heart — which are attributes of the leaders 
in the amusement world, from Christy Mathewson 
to Maude Adams! Our real teachers are not 
those who make us knit our brows in speculation, 
but those who make us stretch our thews in emula- 
tion. 

[1471 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Why, when, where and how do you get your 
amusement? The answer gives a straight clue to 
your efficiency. 

The coming science is the science of play. The 
science of yesterday was that of books, the science 
of today is that of business, the science of tomor- 
row will be that of leisure. Great men are the 
spare-time users, small men are the spare-time 
losers. 

So vital is the amusement question, that when a 
detective shadows a man on suspicion, he first pro- 
ceeds to find where and how the man takes his 
pleasure. Most cases of neurasthenia, dyspepsia, 
insomnia, brain fag and mental depression, even 
of intemperance and insanity, have as a principal 
factor either excess, or deficiency, or inappropri- 
ateness of amusement. 

In America we are developing our brains at the 
expense of our instincts, muscles and emotions. 
Our eyes, nerves, pores, lungs, and digestive ap- 
paratus were made for outdoor life. We have 
substituted the close confinement and monotonous 
routine of the schoolroom, shop, office or factory. 
Consequence; a nation proverbially restless, nerv- 
ous and dissatisfied. 

The only relief for this condition lies in the 
formulation and application of a science of play. 

How to have a constant source of amusement: 
[148] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



Watch Americans trying to amuse themselves. 
They are as funny as a kitten chasing its tail — 
and they get just as far. Observe Coney Island, 
New York's common playground, with its thrill- 
ers, shockers, bumpers, ticklers, shoot-the-chutes 
and dive-the-deeps, its bewildering hodge-podge of 
whirling motions, dizzying sights and maddening 
sounds. Again, observe the amusements of the 
rich — their speed contests by automobile and 
aeroplane, their freak entertainments, their open- 
ing nights at every new play, their mad search for 
novel meals, costumes, knick-knacks and celebri- 
ties. The cry is everywhere the same — " Give us 
a new sensation, thrill our nerves and excite our 
emotions, prod our jaded senses till we are quite 
sure we have had a good time and got our money's 
worth!" Faster and faster must we go — and 
sooner and sooner go to pieces. 

The crowning absurdity is here. At the two 
most popular summer resorts near New York, they 
have recently published the fact, proudly and 
loudly, that you can go on with your " tango " — 
interrupted only while you sleep and eat breakfast 
— if you hurry to their mammoth ballroom by the 
sad sea waves! A book intended for the home 
and mother is no place in which to say what I 
think of the tango. But the man who doesn't per- 
petrate it is a noble character. The strong man 

[149] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



does not tango because everybody else does — 
that is why he does not. It is a high moral exer- 
cise to resist the prevailing tendency of the times, 
whatever that be. And the crazy dances of the 
moment are occasions for discipline to those who 
don't engage in them. 

Compare the gentle amusements of our grand- 
fathers — family picnics, necktie parties, husking- 
bees, house-raisings, sled rides, sewing societies 
and church sociables. Instead of the wild Texas 
Tommy, they danced the calm Virginia reel; in- 
stead of the epileptic Looney Rag, they danced 
the stately minuet. They kept their stomachs, 
nerves and sense of modesty. A great feat is to 
be able to look to the future and to learn from 
the past at the same time. We are keen lookers 
— dilatory learners. 

The science of play, what is it? Well, here is 
first a scientific definition of a science : that which 
teaches us how to do best what we want to do 
most. It is not scientific to make a born poet take 
the degree of Bachelor of Science, nor to train a 
good natural blacksmith to become a poor parson. 
Many of our scientists do not know this — but 
many of our scientists are not scientific. Science 
is organized common sense. Be not affrighted, 
therefore, when we speak of a " science of pleas- 
ure." Sanity includes frivolity, and a " scientific 

[150] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



vacation " would be chock-full of real fun. Not 
however, because fun is a goal in itself, but be- 
cause fun is a byway to efficiency. 

The popular idea is that a man works because 
he has to, and plays because he wants to. This 
should be reversed — we should work because we 
love to, and play because we need renewed strength 
for work. Hence, to look rightly on amusement, 
we must reconstruct our idea of work. Vacation 
means nothing till vocation means everything. 

Why do we enjoy our favorite game? Because 
it stimulates and exercises a group of nerves, mus- 
cles and brain cells which ordinarily remain un- 
used, and are unhappy because unused. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, the leaders among men 
choose their pleasure on this principle. The most 
famous ball pitcher in the world plays checkers for 
pastime — his muscles need rest and his nerves re- 
laxation; but his brain, being exceptionally keen, 
must be working in order to be satisfied. The 
world's richest man chooses golf — after the com- 
plexities in the guidance of huge corporations, he 
needs the straight-away course and open air free- 
dom of the golf links. The President of the 
United States pitches a homely tent for himself in 
the back yard of the palatial White House — he 
would escape the endless trappings and conven- 
tions that bind the Chief Executive, and would 

[151] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



imagine himself a nomad of the prairie. These 
men have learned the science of play. 

It is unscientific for a society-loving woman to 
expect of her husband, whose nerves are on edge 
from handling clerks and meeting clients all day 
long, that he should put on a stiff collar and a win- 
ning smile and gallantly accompany her to a recep- 
tion, dance or theater party. Also, it is unscien- 
tific for a home-loving man to expect of his wife, 
who is tired to desperation of the endless cares 
and annoyances of the household, that she should 
feel it a privilege to spend her evenings with him 
in the self-same room where her work has worn 
her out. What the scientific meeting ground of 
these two may be, Heaven only knows ; all I know 
is that they have not discovered it. 

The great bane of civilization is the psychologi- 
cal groove. A doctor must always look omniscient, 
a minister always be desperately good, a banker 
indulge none but safely stupid thoughts, a col- 
lege professor display dignity while his hilarity 
freezes, a housewife make of herself an endless 
aggregation of apron-strings, and a hod-carrier 
forever keep his mind on mud. The true function 
of amusement is to plow through and break down 
this deadening psychological groove — to curtail 
our specialism and round out our humanism. 

The first principle therefore in the science of 

[152] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



play is that our vacation should be the exact op- 
posite of our vocation, on the physical, emotional, 
intellectual and spiritual planes of life. In order 
to get the most from our pleasure, we must first 
analyze our work, temperament, habit and custom 
and environment, for the purpose of discovering 
how to get furthest away from them, during our 
playtime. 

Statesmen are agitating the question of a na- 
tional labor exchange whereby men needing jobs 
may be taken to jobs needing men. A national 
amusement exchange is more imperative, whereby 
train loads of farmers, and especially their wives, 
may be carried bodily to Coney Island for a week 
every summer, while the usual frequenters of 
Coney Island, being city people, may be carried 
back on the same train to the quiet and whoiesome- 
ness of the farm. We would suggest that the 
farmers and their wives come in separate train 
loads, but for two facts; if the wives came alone 
they would get run over, and if the husbands came 
alone, they would get " run in " ! Seriously, such 
an interchange of relaxation would be as beneficial 
to the adults of the nation as a week in the coun- 
try is to the children of the slums. 

If the science of play were to come into vogue, 
what would happen during the vacation season? 
The business man would join a wandering min- 
[153] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



strel troupe. The actress would hide in a far-off 
nunnery. The philosopher would buy a pack of 
tin toys, hunt up a lot of ragged children, and play 
marbles and leap frog with them — not for their 
benefit, but for his own. The poet would take a 
course in pugilism — and the pugilist a course in 
poetry (in the interest of fair play, we would sug- 
gest that these tutor each other, the poet would 
then be as sure of knocking out the pugilist as the 
pugilist is sure of knocking out the poet). The 
housewife would flee to a place where husbands 
and families do not exist, and would drink in free- 
dom to her soul's refreshment. The clergyman 
would spend his days in overalls, and his nights 
rotating among prisons, courts, hospitals, theatres 
and saloons. And the millionaire — supposing that 
he had two weeks' vacation — would spend one 
week in hardening his muscles on the hay field, the 
other in softening his sensibilities amid the slums. 
Vacation to us all would then be revolution and 
re-creation, as it should be. 

This natural recoil from our own personality is 
observed in a summer hotel. The poor little 
waitress declares herself a princess, and the ribbon 
clerk suddenly becomes a millionaire. Such harm- 
less white fibs are an emotional relief, they lend 
a vicarious greatness to the hearts and minds of 
purse-bound slaves. Believe them not — yet re- 

[154] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



buke them not. A summer resort is so called be- 
cause it is the last resort of a sensible man. But 
if you have to go to one, leave your friends behind, 
change your name, seek an unknown inn, and be 
as much unlike yourself as the place and your 
pocketbook will permit. 

We are never entirely free with any one who 
knows us (or thinks he does). When I feel 
humble and sympathetic, I walk through the lower 
East Side of New York, watching the brave immi- 
grants try to make ends meet, and scattering flow- 
ers and pennies here and there among the chil- 
dren. When I feel proud and aristocratic, I ride 
up Fifth Avenue, looking with pity on the fashion 
plates, and devising a loftier beauty for myself. 
But I walk, and I ride, alone. My poor friends 
would not follow me on the Avenue, my rich 
friends could not follow me in the slums. Our 
only real freedom is among strangers. 

If you belong to a family, or a family belongs 
to you, leave them strictly at home on your vaca- 
tion. If they are children, hire a nurse (if boys, 
add a policeman) . An amusement jaunt with kids 
along is purgatory for Mother and paralysis for 
Father. Coop the kids up. A family is a device 
of Nature for keeping men and women safely 
commonplace. On our vacation, let us vault the 
confines. Regularity is life to the body but death 

[155] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



to the soul. At least once a year, we should break 
into a thousand pieces the treadmill of home and 
business routine, and speed away for a fresh out- 
look, a clear mental vision, a new spiritual start. 
Destiny is half dream, half discipline. To lose 
the former in getting the latter is to fail. 

Let us be concrete. The average prosperous 
American overuses the nerves of sight, of sound 
and of taste — he sees too much, hears too much, 
eats too much. He underuses the nerves of smell 
and of touch — he is behind the savage in discern- 
ing odors and in developing muscles. Therefore 
he should get his fun out-of-doors, where his eyes 
and ears may rest, the fragrances of Nature per- 
meate and soothe him, and a hundred avenues open 
for the exercise of his hands, arms, legs, lungs, 
torso, and olfactories. 

A developed sense of smell is a business ad- 
vantage. Among the blind, friendship means 
fragrance, enmity the reverse. The blind have 
trained their sense of smell — by it they detect 
friend or foe. I know a man who can tell by the 
faint odor on a typewritten sheet whether the typ- 
ist will be harmonious in the man's office. He can, 
by the same sense, locate unseen impurities in the 
food served by a restaurant ; and by following his 
nose in eating — which few men are wise enough 
to do — he becomes his own pure food investiga- 
tes] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



tion committee, thereby enhancing health and sav- 
ing doctors' bills. A science of rejuvenation 
would recognize every subtle factor like this, and 
round us out accordingly. The air of the sea and 
the balsam-laden breeze are actual nourishment to 
him who can smell as hungrily as he eats. The 
man alive as to his nose literally cannot stay in a 
room filled with tobacco smoke, whiskey atmos- 
phere and the stagnant breath of the habitual 
poker-player. The scientific method of saving 
souls is to refine senses. 

The emotions are next to be considered. Three 
society women take the " rest-cure " to one busi- 
ness man. Why? Because social leadership, un- 
like industrial leadership, tears the emotions into 
shreds. The emotions are the gateways to the 
nerves. Whoever feels intensely, for a long 
period of time, will find the only cure in absolute 
rest. The time is coming when vacations will be 
given as prescriptions; when doctors will know 
the mental, psychic, nervous, emotional and spirit- 
ual structure of man, will discern the subtle causes 
of our deep-seated maladies, and will lead us gently 
back to the carefree playtime of childhood. 

Emotional respite from the daily grind is a 
necessary factor in relaxation. This is why 
women gravitate to melancholy poets and lordly 
matinee heroes — these imitation gentlemen pull 

[157] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



at the heart-strings of commonplace lives and ease 
up the strain of emotional repression. This also 
is why men flee to their clubs and " stag-parties " 
— they must have a chance to roar with laughter, 
to eat indigestible things with no reproving glance 
mixed in, and to play an exciting game unchecked 
by the stop-watch of domesticity. 

Every architect's plan for a home should specify 
a play-room for grown-ups, with iron foundation 
and sound-proof walls, where all kinds of adorably 
foolish games are religiously provided, where the 
men folks may holler and the womenfolks weep, 
unmolested. Such a relaxation-room is needed for 
big people quite as much as a nursery for little 
ones. A library full of the saddest books ever 
written should be installed for the benefit of sor- 
row-loving sisters, and a large sign to read as 
follows : 



Ladies Cry from 2 to 4 in the Afternoon 
Gentlemen Laugh from 8 to 10 in the Evening 



The ladies would thus be through crying before 
the gentlemen returned from business — a feature 
that I think of copyrighting, and selling to hus- 
bands and fathers at a fabulous price. 

[158] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



The more " civilized " we become, the more we 
allow the solar plexus, which is the emotional 
brain, to harden into a dead mass of unused nerve- 
cells; because of this our breathing is shallow, 
our digestion weak, our circulation poor and our 
energy low. We have educated the cerebrum to 
a hair-splitting degree, but have neglected the cere- 
bellum and ignored the solar plexus. We must 
therefore gain through amusement what the col- 
lege curriculum should have given us — oppor- 
tunity for a healthy, wise, free exercise of our 
instincts and emotions. A scientific holiday would 
offer mirth, tragedy, song, sport, sleep, work, 
travel, silence, meditation, worship — according 
to the special need of the user of the holi- 
day. 

Let us now apply to ourselves the efficiency 
principles forming a science of play. What 
amusement should we have ; when, where, and how 
should we take it? 

The efficient man plays in order to work more 
and work better. This motive must be fixed. 

Our idea of amusement should be to enjoy it 
while we play, but employ it after we play. And 
if we would analyze the holidays that give us most 
pleasure, we should find them carrying out this 
idea. The " morning after " headache belongs 
to the man who didn't use his head the night be- 
[159] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



fore. A pastime is like a meal, we spoil it by 
thinking while we take it — or by failing to think 
before we take it. 

Every sensible man or woman should posess 
an Efficiency Amusement Chart, the construction 
and use of which we will now describe. It is 
based on a close analysis of our work, surround- 
ings, health, temperament, ideals; and of our 
amusement in relation thereto. 

Let us be concrete. Let us take for illustra- 
tion a manager of a modern city store, and see 
how he should plan his recreation. (The same 
principle and method apply to any worker any- 
where.) 

.The store manager is on duty from eight A. M. 
to six p. m. He is surrounded by the hum of 
voices, the clatter of typewriters, the din of street 
noises. He rides to and from his work on a rat- 
tling, rumbling street-car; he cannot sleep normally 

— with crying children, theater parties, news- 
paper scareheads, pianos next door, late-staying 
visitors, and early morning milkmen, all pulling at 
his nerves. But the man's job depends on his 
being regular, punctilious and reliable as a clock 

— therefore he shouldn't have any nerves. He 
gets no outdoor exercise. He subsists chiefly on 
restaurant and delicatessen near-food. He must 
dress up to the minute. He makes his living by 

[160] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



attending minutely to all the superficialities. He 
has no time for music, no taste for art, no touch 
with the world's great literature. Life is to 
him a bundle of overwrought nerves connecting a 
feverish brain, a rebellious stomach, and a pocket- 
book whose sole function is to disgorge. 

What does the man do, in his leisure hours? 
He joins a poker party with " the boys," where 
cigars and drinks further knock out his nerves ; or 
he jabs more sounds into his ears at a crazy musical 
comedy for the " tired business man " ; or he goes 
motoring and tries to push the speed limit off 
the map. Yet he fondly believes he is quite 
sane. And we are all as foolish in our own 
way. 

How should this man order a scientific rest 
period? 

First. Let him write down the influences and 
ingredients of his daily work and life. They are : 
noise, hurry, sociability, regularity, responsibility, 
confinement, fashion, convention, financial worry, 
sleeplessness, brain fag, muscular weakness, emo- 
tional atrophy. Certain physical disorders must 
proceed from the man's unnatural mode of life; 
suppose they are eye strain and indigestion. 

Second. Let him write down the exact op- 
posites of these — a list of the lacking elements 
in his make-up or environment, whose presence 

[161] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



would balance, normalize, refresh and energize 
him. (See chart appended.) 

Third. Let him now make a list of all his 
available sources of amusement — from an eve- 
ning's fun to the yearly vacation of a month or a 
fortnight. He will probably have twenty or 
thirty of these — certainly a wider choice than he 
imagines before taking inventory, the average per- 
son being narrower in nothing than in his routine 
of pleasures. 

Fourth. Let him now take each amusement 
in List B and compare it with each requirement in 
List A, noting the spaces opposite how far his 
customary mode of enjoyment supplies the ele- 
ments to increase efficiency — or decrease it. A 
thoughtful, conscientious building of this chart 
should mean the breaking of a great light on the 
store manager. 

Fifth. Let him then form the habit of con- 
sulting the chart whenever he plans a day or a 
week or an hour of recreation, until he chooses by 
instinct and reason the kind of play that makes 
a new man of him. (The chart for a doctor, a 
minister, or a college president, would of course 
be entirely different in many, or all, of the aspects 
here given.) 

The amusements should be marked plus ( + ) 
where they increase efficiency, minus ( — ) where 

[162] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



they decrease it, and zero (o) where they have no 
special effect either way. List B is not complete, 
but merely illustrative. 

Adding the plus marks, then canceling each 
minus with a plus, we have the largest plus re- 
mainder (12) for the mountain tramp, and the 
largest minus remainder ( 13 ) for the dinner party. 
Hence the former is the best, and the latter the 
worst recreation, of those here given, for this 
particular manager of a city store. But all those 
marked + in the column of values are good for 
him, and all those marked — are likely to be bad. 
If any item in List A is of special importance, that 
should count double, in figuring the totals ; two + 
or two — marks, as the case may be. 

Now I am not so foolish as to suppose that a 
sane man will, for the rest of his days, consult a 
dry table of Efficiency Values whenever he wants 
to play chess or frolic with the baby. I do be- 
lieve, however, that a shrewd, ambitious man will 
construct this chart for himself, will study it care- 
fully, and will form the habit of choosing his 
games from the plus side of the efficiency led- 
ger. 

The efficiency principles embodied in the Chart 
may be stated in a few words. A scientific recrea- 
tion should include: 

I. Complete break in routine, activities and ob- 
[163] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



ligations, with specific rest for overworked organs, 
nerves, brain-cells and muscles. 

2. Exercise for unused faculties and functions, 
to the point of wholesome fatigue of a kind sel- 
dom known. 

3. An element of surprise, mental, emotional or 
spiritual, to re-awaken interest in everyday life. 

4. Absolute freedom, inner and outer, during 
the recreation period. 

5. Temperamental uplift and renewal. 

Change of work is not rest. We delude our- 
selves with the notion that it is, merely because 
we do not know how to rest. The American dis- 
order is nerve-strain, for which the only cure is 
perfect relaxation. 

Long ago the nation's richest man learned that 
a siesta following lunch put him in condition for 
a new day's work in the afternoon. Great fac- 
tories now hold a recess about three p. M. for a 
quarter of an hour, to give their employees a rest, 
with reading, music, games, and so forth. This 
practise should become universal, not for charity 
but for efficiency. Concentration follows relaxa- 
tion ; and the time will come when the great busi- 
nes men, like the great authors, do their day's 
work in three hours. 

Thinking with your whole brain means playing 
with your whole body, loving with your whole 

[164] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



heart, longing with your whole soul. Efficiency is 
wholeness, specialized by turns. 

Husbands and wives, however, should make it 
their solemn duty to be silly together. The man 
who finds his chief pleasure in business or the club, 
and the woman who finds hers in matinee thrills 
or the fashion parade, are slumping toward mari- 
tal inefficiency at an alarming rate. Every house- 
hold should have a home gymnasium in attic or 
cellar, with an assortment of games for the dining- 
room table, including the favorite of each mem- 
ber of the family. Our pastimes should center 
in the home, and we should become uneasy when 
parents and children no longer enjoy the same 
things. One reason why every family should have 
at least two children is that the parents may have 
an excuse apiece for going to the circus. 

It is just as needful to escape and forget the 
family at least once a year. The Lord never made 
two people who could live together sanely and 
sweetly three hundred and sixty-five days at a 
stretch. Every wife knows this — but nearly 
every husband has it to learn. From what I have 
seen of married life, I believe it is the religious 
duty of every man to disappear once a year. Not 
only depart — disappear! And twice a year is 
twice as good as once. Get beyond the reach of 
mails, telegrams and telephones. Leave no ad- 

[165] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



dress behind, merely keep an accident card of home 
directions in your pocket. Don't let yourself 
write home, no matter how much you feel like it. 
Sleep late every morning. Read nothing. Revel 
in irresponsibility. Roam where you will. Let 
your watch run down, and refuse to wind it up. 
Be so anxious for freedom that you forget dinner- 
time and miss a few meals (your stomach also 
needs a vacation). In short, return to primitive 
existence, with all the obligations of home and 
business wiped out for two weeks or a month. 
And if you aren't glad to be a regular family man 
again, loaded down with responsibilities on all 
sides, then of a truth I don't know men. 

Having given your wife, your children and 
your clerks an equal chance twice a year for res- 
pite from the brutal chains of the habitual, you 
will have supplied a leading factor in efficiency — 
a scientific period of play. 

" But," you protest, " I can't stay away that 
long, my business would be ruined." Very well, 
you are lucky. A series of week-ends at play 
does more for the busy man than a whole month 
of leisure. The only condition is that you be able 
to erase your work from your mind in an hour, 
instead of a week or a month. To master the 
art of relaxation is to gain more from your short 
Sundays of freedom than most people gain from 

[166] 



PLAY AND EFFICIENCY 



a month's pleasure jaunt. Recreation is not geo- 
graphical, it is mental. We do not work too much 
for our health and happiness — we think too little. 
During the writer's four years in college he held 
the tennis championship of the school. He was 
much elated over this. He should have been 
much depressed. What he needed was to be 
champion of quoits, or checkers, or hide-the-hand- 
kerchief, or some other leisurely, meditative sport. 
The game of tennis is for the fat, rich, phlegmatic 
gentlemen; the game of golf is for thin, poor, 
fidgety ones; but the overfed ones won't play 
tennis and the underfed ones can't play golf — so 
why go to all the trouble of this psychologi- 
cal diagnosis? Response to nerve-stimuli is the 
key to a man's appropriate game. If he is quick, 
nervous, excitable, he should avoid polo, tennis, 
high diving, racing of all kinds. Fun, like food, 
may be meat to one man — poison to another. 
if In a deeper way temperament is crucial. Every 
so often we should leave our work in order to re- 
new the motive or incentive that makes us work. 
What is your motive? Is it love, or ambition, al- 
truism, or self-development, or the creative im- 
pulse? When you feel yourself losing it (and 
your labor growing dull and monotonous), can 
you re-discover it soonest by the sea, or on a hill- 
top, or amid the crowds, or in silent communion 
[167] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



with a loved one? A poet and a politician can 
no more take their recreation together than a 
lark and a lion could. An accurate measure of a 
man is the number and variety of his chosen modes 
of recreation. Their diversity mark his extensity. 
To be leader of something is less a goal than to be 
lover of everything. 

The tests for a scientific amusement are few and 
easy. It should be natural, simple, unconven- 
tional. It should combine emotional expression 
with nervous relaxation and muscular exertion. 
It should result in mental and physical balance. 
It should restore the child in us. It should make 
us frank, honest, loyal, democratic, whole-hearted. 
It should give us perspective, and a saner view of 
ourselves and the other fellow. It should trans- 
fer the grip on our game to the grip on our job. 
It should develop tolerance, patience, keen judg- 
ment, fair play, sure method, fine team work. It 
should leave body stronger, heart bigger, mind 
clearer, soul finer. 

Does your favorite pastime do all these things 
for you ? Then you can make it a " hobby " and 
ride to the top of the world ! 



[168] 



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CHAPTER VII 
HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



THE mother of sin is shortsightedness. 
If a man could always see himself 
clearly, in relation to God, Nature, the 
world and himself, he would be ashamed to err 
because of his noble origin, and afraid to err be- 
cause of his ignoble end. 

Therefore a saving process, moral as well as 
hygienic, is for us to withdraw occasionally from 
our human shell and view our lives dispassion- 
ately, noting whence we came, whither we go, and 
where we are. 

Supposing that we were a visitor, from the 
jungle or from the sky, what would we first 
remark, on judging civilization? The presence 
everywhere of weakly, sickly, undeveloped, un- 
skilled, human bodies. What next? The equal 
presence of unsound minds; for who but a man of 
unsound mind would expect to cure an unsound 
body with medicines alone, or with thought waves 

[170] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



alone? Our bodies prove us animals; do animals 
have need of either drugs or auto-suggestion? 
Do animals turn pauper, go insane, commit suicide, 
or otherwise show themselves as unwise and in- 
efficient as men? We in New York City plume 
ourselves on having organized a Board of Ine- 
briety, for the scientific treatment of drunkenness. 
We are still inferior to the dumb brutes; the ac- 
tions of dumb brutes do not necessitate a Board 
of Inebriety. 

I would rather be a superb animal than any 
other one thing on earth. Because, having been 
that, I can learn to be whatever else I will; but, 
never having been that, I can become hardly 
anything worth while. The whole Advanced 
Thought band need to get down to earth — liter- 
ally as well as metaphorically. They have sailed 
the clouds of imagination long enough; they must 
realize that the mind, though greater than the 
body, is later than the body; and that a glorious 
physique, because harder to attain, is more to be 
esteemed than a transcendental airiness of intel- 
lect. To despise or neglect the body is a mark of 
ignorance, weakness or delusion. It is the per- 
version of the animal nature, not the possession of 
it, that develops grossness and defeats spirituality. 
So long as power distinguishes the body, the body 
should come first; only as pleasure steals the place 

[171] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



of power does the body recede to a lower level 
than the soul. 

What keeps animals healthy? Chiefly exercise. 
They stretch their muscles the whole day long, 
they breathe to the bottom of their lungs, they 
perspire normally, they digest perfectly, they sleep 
soundly because really tired, in short they occupy 
and use themselves to the fullest. Now the spirit 
is affected by the circulation of the blood. So, if 
all our functions, mental and physical, were thor- 
oughly alive we should have a better developed 
spiritual nature. 

I think that a moderate course in pugilism 
should be in the curriculum of every theological 
seminary. The pugilist feels ashamed to be sick, 
he takes a well deserved pride in his body, he cul- 
tivates views of life as broad as his shoulders, and 
he looks with scorn upon effeminacy. All of which 
should be part of a clergyman's equipment. Ani- 
mals are the first real teachers of men; and the 
animal man could offer a valuable set of lessons 
to the spiritual man, if the spiritual man would 
renounce prejudice. 

What is the first lesson? That we must not 
become less vital in becoming more mental. Neg- 
lect of mind merely postpones development — 
neglect of muscle causes premature decay. In- 
deed, practically all of the modern, rational 

[172] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



" cures " appear but fancy substitutes for plain, 
old-fashioned exercise. The act of sweeping and 
the act of sawing wood, which served to keep our 
grandparents healthy, now retreat before elec- 
tricity, thermotherapy, hydrotherapy, mechano- 
therapy, vibration and massage ; all of which but 
rouse the circulation as gymnastic duties in the 
household once did. Put a gilt name and handle 
to a broomstick or an ax and you get the same as 
a fifty-dollar course in modern Physical Culture — 
provided you do not know it is a broomstick or an 
ax. 

What is the second lesson? That we must pro- 
vide in some tabloid form a regular equivalent for 
the hours of bodily exercise taken by animals every 
day. This regular equivalent may be a game of 
ball, a gymnasium practise, a boxing bout, a ses- 
sion with the dumb bells or Indian clubs, a long 
run in the open, a series of tensing and stretching 
movements, a home course in apparatus work, a 
setting-up drill as required in the army, a vigorous 
Delsartian dance, or a pillow-fight with the chil- 
dren. According to age, occupation and tempera- 
ment, we should choose our best mode of physical 
energizing, and make it a part of our day as much 
as eating or sleeping. The best physicians, hy- 
gienists and psychologists are agreed on the physio- 
logical and therapeutic wisdom of such a habit. 

[173] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



There is a higher and deeper significance, how- 
ever, which even the athlete fails to observe, in the 
results of physical exercise. The mental and 
moral gain is the real end of the striving. This 
we rarely consider. We have always known the 
value of exercise for the body; we have lately em- 
phasized the effect of thought on the body; but 
we have not come to appreciate the influence of the 
body over the mind, and until some great athlete 
appears, who is also a philosopher and teacher, we 
shall remain exposed to the one-sidedness of the 
mental healer and faith-curist. Mind is omnipo- 
tent — but neglect of body renders mind power- 
less. 

You can prove the morals of gymnastics for 
yourself. Determine to follow a particular sys- 
tem of exercise regularly, each day, for a long 
period — say a year. You won't do it; and the 
reason why you won't is that your will is weak, 
your persistence lacking, your sense of order unde- 
veloped, your love of ease overdeveloped, your 
ambition spasmodic, and your personal ideal wav- 
ering or ill-defined. These are mental and moral 
disabilities, not physical. And the man who is 
training for an athletic contest, thereby keeping to 
a schedule of muscular duties, gains to an even 
larger extent in mental and moral efficiency. This 
fact was illustrated recently in the rise and fall of 

[174] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



a noted baseball pitcher. While he was winning, 
and his pride was up, he walked the straight line 
of rectitude; but when he lost, and his pride de- 
serted him, he took to drink, and at last forfeited 
his place in the league. 

Study the face of any man who has brought 
himself from illness and weakness to health and 
strength by physical means. Take Eugen Sandow 
for example, or Theodore Roosevelt. You find 
that the intellectual and spiritual character, as 
stamped on the face, grows and solidifies with 
the stretching and hardening of the muscles. An- 
nette Kellerman was a cripple in childhood. She 
is now a wonderful athlete and champion swim- 
mer. Do you suppose the salary she now earns 
— as much in a week as the average person makes 
in a year — is due altogether to the play of her 
muscles? It is due, first, to the play of her mind 
and the toil of her spirit through many long and 
painful years while she was teaching her body to 
obey her will. Does any man wish to multiply his 
salary ten-fold? Let him learn to do ten times 
as much work, ten times as well — and the law of 
attraction will do the rest; no human power can 
rob him of the ten-fold reward in money that be- 
longs to him. 

Big men do two things that little men don't; 
they make a pleasure of business, and a business 

[175] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



of pleasure. They work all over — then play all 
over; they are whole men in whatever they do. 
And they religiously observe some fad or amuse- 
ment or muscular sport that compels them to for- 
get their business cares. For exercise lubricates 
and cleanses the mind as well as the body, and you 
can't have moral cobwebs where your muscle 
swings clear. 

A town up in Vermont has lately been demon- 
strating the moral effect of muscular action. The 
officials of this town do not herd their prisoners 
together in a dark, stuffy, odious jail. They lib- 
erate the convicts during working hours, put them 
at honest labor somewhere in the village, and 
divide the proceeds between the workers and the 
State. One might think that so much freedom 
would be dangerous — the prisoners would com- 
mit some other crime, or at least break away. It 
is said, however, that the average misuse of privi- 
lege has been one to a hundred cases — a negli- 
gible fraction. The worst man that ever lived 
will be truer for being trusted. And if you can 
get him to working with a real heart-interest, his 
mischief-making tendencies will slowly disappear. 

Other criminals, too, have need of the same 
treatment. I refer to sick people. The chronic 
invalid is a hardened criminal; he has broken so 
completely the laws of his own being that he does 

[176] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



not recognize the fragments, he imagines himself 
an object of pity instead of a sinner deserving 
punishment. For many kinds of ailments the 
modern " work cure " is a blessed relief. Let a 
chronic invalid become so absorbed in a pleasant 
occupation that he forgets to watch his symptoms 
— and his symptoms, used to being coddled and 
pampered, fly away in a huff. Idleness in a sana- 
torium is good business, but poor ethics ; it allows 
mental microbes to germinate, which presently 
break out in a new physical disease. If you want 
to set an invalid on the right road quickly, make 
him love somebody or something with a power so 
fierce and a will so determined that all his being is 
stirred into action. Every ill is a form of love- 
lessness. God is Life because He is Love. And 
every child of God who would be whole must let 
his love create his life. 

How does physical exercise tone the moral fiber? 
Through cultivating promptness, decisiveness, 
sureness, poise, initiative, adaptability, self-reli- 
ance, good humor, and a cleanness of thought re- 
flected by a cleanness of body. The chief ingre- 
dients of immorality have been found to be impure 
blood in the brain and stagnant blood in the body. 
The soul, whether in the body or out of it, does 
not wish to err; it is forced to err by the sheer 
weight of dead matter pressing it down to the 

[177] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



lower levels. Only as the lungs and muscles pro- 
vide a counter-impetus through exercise, will the 
soul be lifted and expanded to its rightful emi- 
nence, thus being freed to command the life and to 
use the body as a keen, fine instrument. 

But exercise is only one phase of hygiene and 
efficiency. Let us consider other phases. 

There are two great modern schools of health. 

The first is a primary — the second a post-grad- 
uate. 

Hygienically, few people in civilization have 
learned the alphabet of their own composition. 
Spiritually, few people in civilization have mas- 
tered the idiom of their own expression. Hence 
the need of both these schools of health, which you 
will find to be supplementary, not contradictory. 

The teaching of the first is : Only Nature cures 
the body. 

The teaching of the second is : Only God heals 
the soul. 

The first is called Nature Cure, the second is 
called Divine Healing. 

If you are more body than soul, study Nature 
Cure. 

If you are more soul than body, investigate 
Divine Healing. 

If you are all-round, look into both, and accept 
neither without proof. 

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HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



The first school has many branches, among them 
being Physical Culture, Dietetics, Hydrotherapy, 
Massage, Mechanotherapy, Osteopathy, Chiro- 
practic, Electricity, Magnetic Healing, Remedial 
Gymnastics, Biochemistry, Cures of Air, Light, 
Earth, Heat and Cold. 

The second school has fewer branches but live- 
lier, including New Thought, Christian Science, 
Mental Science, Divine Science, Faith Cure, and 
Psychic Healing. 

A third intermediate school, hitherto unclassi- 
fied but evidently touching on both the others, em- 
braces Fasting, Suggestion, Autosuggestion, Em- 
manuelism, Rest Cure, Silence Cure, Work Cure. 
These all contain a measure of appeal to the body, 
and a measure to the soul. Hence, when properly 
administered, they are generally saner than ex- 
treme doctrines of either Nature Cure or Divine 
Healing. 

Why print this list of outlandish therapeutic 
names, some unintelligible if not unpronounce- 
able? 

Because to some extent these are all good cures 
— and a good cure is a better prevention. The 
way to keep well is to do the things a wise doctor 
would tell us — before he has the chance. Our 
doctor is as valuable as we don't need him. Some 
day we shall wake up to this fact, and shall pay 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



him as much as we don't need him. We now pay 
him for his tardiness ; as well pay a watchman for 
guarding a rifled safe. A physician is either a 
teacher or nothing. And the work of the teacher 
is to anticipate — not to probe or to mend. Jo 
study symptoms is to have neglected causes. 

Of the current modes of drugless healing, some 
are freakish, some fanatical, some positively dan- 
gerous. But they have, together, done this one 
thing : they have shown the old-school practitioner 
that a man is a complex being, and that no amount 
of tinkering with his body will satisfy his heart, 
calm his mind, or heal and empower his soul. 
Health is physical, mental, emotional, psychic, 
moral, executive, and spiritual. Omit any factor 
and you imperil the whole. 

A tonic bath or a subliminal consciousness may 
keep you well. But you must first know where you 
live — on the surface or at the center. Which, 
with you, are stronger — muscles or ideals? 
Don't imagine that ideals have any right to ab- 
sorb you, leaving your muscles to wither away. 
But the place to focus your hygienic study is where 
you most enjoy being. You won't begin to know 
what health means until you chuck overboard for 
good and all the symptomsillies, wo-begone-willies, 
germ-jeremiahs, pepsin-paralysis and hygiene of 
horrificandum. Choose your doctor by how he 

[180] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



cheers you up. And if his remedy isn't pleasant, 
it doesn't fit. Maybe you need exercise, maybe 
you need raw food, maybe you need reeducation of 
the brain cells; but whatever you need you will 
desire. Bitter medicine is for bogie-men. 

You can put a rational philosophy of health into 
six words, forming an acrostic: 

Hygiene 

Evolution 

Ambition 

Love 

Trust 

Harmony 

Hygiene is physical, Evolution mental, Ambi- 
tion executive, Love emotional, Trust spiritual, 
Harmony psychic and moral. Each of these must 
form a clause in your health insurance policy. It 
will pay you, financially, to take an hour, a day or 
a week off and learn to forestall the doctor and 
druggist by incorporating these principles in your 
everyday life. 

i. Hygiene is the reapproximation of natural 
conditions, the provision of such food, water, 
earth, air, and sun as will guarantee us good ani- 
mals. Our humanness is the costliest thing about 
us. For it we have paid the most. For mere 
intellectual progress and social gain, it is a terrible 

[181] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



price to lose animal instincts and disparage ani- 
mal powers. The first mark of a sound life is 
to exult in purely physical buoyancy. And the 
first warning of disease is the willingness to evade 
elemental things, preferring closed cabs, stuffy 
houses, hermetic flannels, tepid baths, highly sea- 
soned food, hectic literature, and artificial conver- 
sation. Pity the day when you cease to revel in a 
storm, or want to paddle in the rain, or love to 
breast the east wind. It is healthier to make mud 
pies than to eat real ones. Nothing sets the blood 
a-tingle like a morning plunge in a mountain 
stream. And for genuine sleep, give me a pine 
pillow, a bed of earth, a good-night glimpse of 
starlight, and the tender murmur of the trees as 
they lock their boughs above me. 

If you want to live long and be happy, start 
right now being a fine savage. You may not like 
the way this sounds — but wait till you see how it 
feels. Hold your head at least as high as the 
king of the jungle does ; breathe long and deep on 
every possible occasion; exercise daily because you 
take pride in swelling muscles and joy in a glow- 
ing skin; get a wholesome thirst and a clean one 
that nothing will satisfy but lots of pure water; 
master a live game and beat the other fellow all 
over the field; learn to laugh at furs and gloves 
and sickly layers of blanket; eat because you like 

[182] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



to eat and never be ashamed; ridicule the fear of 
germs and tell the professional wan-face that mag- 
nifies them to begone with his pathological de- 
lirium; keep your windows always open and your 
face to the sun; revel in being alive through and 
through; love your body for its own sake — then 
watch your mind improve and your soul expand ! 

2. Evolution is the modification of hygiene to 
the growth of the individual. If Kneipp orders 
you to bathe more, or Fletcher to eat less, or 
Dewey to stop eating, or Sandow to exercise with 
apparatus, or Swoboda to exercise without, or 
Mrs. Eddy to meditate, or Weir Mitchell to rest, 
or anybody else to do this, that, or the other if not 
the opposite — don't you believe them. Study 
their system for yourself, adapt it to your own 
case, or else leave it high and dry for the next man. 

Examples of the folly and futility of standard- 
izing Health. 

I know one person who fasted forty days with 
great benefit; I know of another who fasted three 
days and died. The first was mentally prepared, 
the second was not. 

There are people who recoil from the use of 
mud-baths; there are others who delight in them. 
If your development is in the air-bath stage, 
you will prefer air-baths and gain more from 
them. 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



City folks have been known to pine away in 
the country. Yet country life is ideal — for 
everything but temperament. Nature penalizes 
temperament — as heavily as God rewards it. 

Tolstoi and others have been vegetarians tem- 
porarily — while their sympathies and tastes were 
being refined. Then they went back to meat. All 
dietetic preference is of psychic origin ; food is both 
cause and result of character. 

Vigorous lung expansion helps the whole or- 
ganism. Yet the action of the breath almost stops 
in the higher trance of the mahatma; to him the 
flight of the soul is more hygienic than the pulse 
of the body. Indeed, with the growth of the 
spiritual nature all physical exercise decreases in 
violence. 

Cases might be multiplied to show how impos- 
sible one mortal's experience is for the life of an- 
other. If you are to reach the hundred-year mark 
and be well every minute, you must form your own 
habits of thinking, eating, bathing, exercising, 
dressing, sleeping, working, playing, and achiev- 
ing. 

3. Ambition serves to prevent the self-indul- 
gence that usually underlies disease. Ailments 
are luxuries that only the rich and idle can afford. 
Women most frequent sanatoriums because women 
have no large responsibilities to act as a moral 

[184] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



brace. (If you ask why men most frequent pris- 
ons, the reason is the same. That is the difference 
between men and women. Idle men sin against 
their neighbors; idle women sin against them- 
selves.) Kings, presidents, powerful statesmen, 
and able financiers see to it that their health is pre- 
served. If our bearing toward ourselves were 
sufficiently regal, we could never be ill. All 
human error traces to undervaluation of human 
worth. Esteem yourself as highly as Carnegie 
and Rockefeller do themselves — then you will 
keep well at any cost. Health has a price which 
only ambition is willing to pay. 

4. Love is the best physician you can find. But 
if you seek Love as a physician you will never, 
never find her. She will seek you when your face 
is toward the light. And if you always went in 
that direction, you would never need a physician. 
Doctors catch none but the stragglers out of dark- 
ness. 

Love provides the soothing touch of one who 
understands, without the mercenary factor of the 
paid healer. God pity the child, or the man, who 
does not know the saving refuge of a woman's 
breast. In the loving embrace of a mother, a 
sister, a sweetheart, a wife, lies the renewal of 
strength and courage and all that makes for sound- 
ness. No man is well who does not sometimes 

[185] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



weep. And the only safe place to weep is in the 
cloister of a woman's heart. 

Love tends to safety through a prescient, clair- 
voyant, peculiar gift of knowing. In many cases 
of sudden death or disaster, a premonition of the 
crisis has been felt by some one closely related to 
the sufferer. Love sharpens the senses and 
heightens perceptions otherwise dormant. There 
are few wives who do not know how their hus- 
bands violate the laws of health — and there are 
few husbands who know how much their wives 
know. If we could see ourselves as we appear 
to those who love us, we should be infinitely humble 
— and infinitely strong. Love creates a pure 
supremacy of the ideal self, a self in which blemish 
or weakness cannot enter. 

Love develops an unselfish motive for living — 
and to live for some one else is to empower one's 
own life. Did you ever try saving the pennies 
you were tempted to spend on a bit of needless 
luxury, to make a loved one happy with the 
money? This is one of the few ways to avoid 
surfeit and gain satisfaction at the same time. 
Indeed the real joy of living is to forget living in 
loving. 

5. Trust improves health. Faith is the cor- 
ner-stone of all recovery; and it is reasonable to 
suppose that the house of the body would never 

[186] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



crumble if a deep, firm belief had always been 
kept the foundation. A strong conviction, fully 
carried out, prevents the need of cure. Physio- 
logical examples : 

You have a cold and some one advises you to 
fast a day or two, or take fruit alone. You fear 
starvation and eat on. You fall sick. If you 
had trusted Nature, you would have done as the 
animals do — rested your stomach, worked your 
lungs, and burned the impurities out. 

You groan with the fiendish twinges of rheu- 
matism; your doctor tells you to avoid meat; you 
fear you may " lose your strength " — and on the 
sly you brew beef tea. Soon you acquire the gout 
also — and the ptomaines dance in glee at the 
funeral of your faith in common sense. 

Your circulation is poor; you read somewhere 
that fresh air, night and day, summer and winter, 
makes good blood; but from your benighted an- 
cestors you inherit the superstition that fresh air 
is dangerous after dark. So you grow paler, 
while your window stays shut. 

Whatever is wrong you make more wrong by 
doubting or hesitating. Better to be firmly un- 
hygienic than falteringly sanitary. Believe any- 
thing good and hard — then w T atch how your 
backbone stiffens, your breath deepens, your stom- 
ach smiles, your frayed nerves knit, and your solar 
[187] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



plexus thanks you. The finest health resort is a 
mountain of faith. You should take a morning 
walk there every day. 

6. Harmony completes health. Hygiene, evo- 
lution, ambition, love and trust are all individual 
attainments; but harmony connects the outer and 
the inner, making of surroundings a fitting com- 
plement for the stature of the soul. Everything 
about you means something true or false to your 
personality. Your objective life and subjective 
consciousness must correspond if your psychic and 
emotional balance is to be maintained. The 
color of your walls, the texture and fit of your 
clothing, the number and kind of your house-fur- 
nishings, the quality of sounds that greet you, the 
aura and atmosphere of the people who surround 
you — all these factors help to form your hygienic 
status. Learn to be at peace with your environ- 
ment, or to remold it after the image of your per- 
sonal ideal. There are those who have had to 
change their name and residence before they found 
themselves. 

Health is a radiation of inner affluence. To 
be strong, you must shine as the sun. If your 
neighbors do not want the light, send your beams 
elsewhere, for health demands adjustment, under- 
standing, reciprocity. And to fill your niche 
with kindness, poise, and devotion is to aid 

[188] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



in establishing a permanent vigor of mind and 
body. 

A man is a blend of animal and angel. The 
proportions may vary — a prize-fighter is mostly 
animal, a missionary mostly angel; but the animal 
and the angel are both in every man. The prob- 
lem is, not to avoid either, but to improve the 
quality of each. 

One of the strange perversenesses of man's 
brain has been to despise the animal in him. We 
have so far lost contact with, and knowledge of, 
Nature and her laws, that when a natural man 
recently walked down Broadway, clad in the nat- 
ural garb of Greek robe and sandals, he was ridi- 
culed by the newspapers, mobbed by the American 
small boy, and forced to leave the country on pain 
of arrest! 

The clothing, from shoes to hat, of nearly every 
man who jeered at this apostle of Return to Na- 
ture was unhygienic and unscientific. But we, the 
many foolish, mocked the one wise. 

The trouble with us all is not that we are ani- 
mals, but that we are poor animals. Every year 
we waste millions of dollars in the search for 
health, and also billions of foot-pounds of ac- 
tion-producing energy, because we have wandered 
from the paths of Nature and become enmired in 
the quicksands of a spurious intellectuality. Vi- 

[189] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



tality is the mainstay of both mentality and spir- 
ituality. 

Health should be taught systematically, thor- 
oughly and attractively in every home, school 
and church of the world. And as men at large 
have lost their health-giving instincts, we should 
have to study the rules of hygiene from animals in 
the forest. 

Is there any reason why we should build 
" model institutions " for the housing of the un- 
fit, rather than learn how to prevent the occur- 
rence of the unfit? As the world progresses, 
should new diseases (or at least new names for 
diseases) be multiplying with startling rapid- 
ity? 

We have got this health matter wrong-end-to. 
We spend $100 in trying to regain health where 
we should spend $i in learning to maintain health. 
We wake up only when we break down. Conse- 
quently we pay about $1,500,000,000 each year 
for this folly, which amount would be saved if we 
cared enough to prevent the unnecessary loss from 
disease and death in this country. 

Probably the worst, certainly the most wide- 
spread, malady in America is humanitis, or a fever- 
ish desire to be supercivilized. The honest health 
in the shaggy, rough, crude elements of life has 
been replaced by a sickly assortment of hot-house 

[190] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



refinements that avail for nothing but a social 
pride or indolence. The richer a man becomes, 
the less he does for himself; and for a man to be 
ill, some part of him must have been idle. We 
need to be saved from our servants and freed from 
our luxuries. 

Consider the unhygienic day of the average 
" successful " man. 

He has slept in a room overheated and under- 
ventilated. He rises late — and his whole day is 
immediately marked " Rush." He takes a per- 
functory bath, neither hot enough to lubricate the 
bodily machine, nor cold enough to wake up the 
mind for the day. 

His breakfast, swallowed hastily and unhun- 
grily, chiefly consists of a creamed cereal with an 
acid fruit — a dietetic combination almost sure to 
start rebellion in the stomach. 

He hurries for his street car, train or limousine, 
grabs a morning paper on the way, and while his 
vehicle jolts him downtown, he disturbs his vision, 
digestion and emotion by filling his mind with trag- 
edies and trifles from all over the world, that have 
no bearing whatsoever on his usefulness for the 
day. Reaching the office with stomach and brain 
both peevish and protesting, he starts the day's 
work in no fit condition for enduring the strain 
on eye, ear, brain and nerves that a modern day's 

[191] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



work requires of a successful man. If he feels 
" out of sorts " he sends to the drug store for a 
headache powder — and commits further ruin of 
his stomach. 

He works in foolish, inefficient clothes — from 
tight-fitting shoes to stiff, high collar. Never 
having learned the science of relaxation, he speeds 
on explosively, clear to the moment of going out 
for his one o'clock luncheon. He arrives at the 
restaurant deeply embedded in problems and cares, 
through which the gastric juices cannot percolate. 
More often than not, he talks up a " business 
deal " over coffee and cigars — a custom that, on 
scientific analysis, appears physiologically and psy- 
chologically unsound. 

After his day of close confinement he hurries 
uptown, dresses in even more absurd clothes, eats 
a heavy dinner, then propels himself to an even- 
ing function that destroys the best sleeping hours 
— from ten to twelve — and finally drops into 
bed with a horrible sense of having to do the same 
thing over tomorrow, and tomorrow's tomorrow, 
and all the countless tomorrows of the rest of the 
days of his life. 

What is wrong with this man? He simply does 
not know the meaning and purpose of civiliza- 
tion, he has made an end of the means to an end. 
The object of civilization is to develop the human 

[192] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



brain, which it does to a nicety by the friction, com- 
petition, compulsion and routine of American life 
in the twentieth century. But while civilization 
strengthens our brain, civilization weakens our 
body. The endless train of chronic diseases was 
produced, and is perpetuated, by civilization. 
Only as a man uncivilizes, or decivilizes, himself 
during a certain portion of his time can he hope 
to attain great longevity coupled with great pro- 
ductivity. 

We are now in the third stage of race unfold- 
ment. In the babyhood of the race we were ani- 
mals; in the childhood of the race we were beings 
of romance, adorers of myths, fables, dogmas, 
superstitions; in the manhood of the race we are 
mental or industrial machines; in the super-man- 
hood of the race we shall be liberated spirits, hav- 
ing brains, hearts and bodies fully developed, but 
using and commanding them as conscious owners 
of them. The third, or mind stage, is the least 
healthy of them all; since it lacks the enduring 
strength of the body stage, the vitalizing faith of 
the heart stage, or the renewing poise of the soul 
stage. 

Let us now regard the superior wisdom of ani- 
mals, in habits, customs and instincts pertaining 
to health. Nature is the true guide to health; 
and in the multiplicity of modern cures, cults, 
[193] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



pathies, ologies and isms, our safety lies in re- 
course to Nature. While medicine, psychology 
and surgery may be needed in acute cases of spe- 
cific diseases, a purely natural mode of living is 
the best health preservative. We can learn this 
from the animals, in the following respects : 

i. Natural Food. — The animals eat only when 
hungry, of the simplest articles, for the sole pur- 
pose of satisfying hunger. Myriads of human 
beings eat three meals a day — and are never hun- 
gry. To be hungry, you must feel your mouth 
water at the very thought of a slice of plain whole 
wheat bread and butter. If, as we are told, nine- 
tenths of all our ailments proceed from bad diges- 
tion, we may well say that disease was born half- 
way between the cook stove and the menu card. 
For most of the foods that need to be cooked need 
more to be corrected, and the deadliness of din- 
ners lies in their variety. Who of us would make 
a slab of raw meat the piece de resistance at a 
banquet? Hosts of common disorders may be 
ascribed largely to the modern vogue of mixing all 
kinds of food stuffs, first in the cook stove, then on 
the menu card. 

An ideal lunch, containing the elements to sup- 
port life and satisfy hunger, is a piece of gra- 
ham bread and butter, a poached egg, a glass of 
pure milk, and a baked apple. How many peo- 

[194] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



pie, entertaining at luncheon, would dare to order 
a meal like that? Six leading dishes are enough 
for any meal. Yet some of our noblest states- 
men, being feted and banqueted, have to go to 
bed with an old-fashioned stomach ache due to 
the " hospitality " of their popularity. Real hos- 
pitality means filling the hearts, minds and souls of 
our friends — not their stomachs. And I look 
forward to the time when the only eatable offered 
to a passing guest will be a delicious, refreshing 
beverage — hot in winter, cold in summer, and 
more respectful of his digestion than of our pride. 
2. Natural Sleep. — The animals sleep while 
the world is dark, wake when their sleep is out, 
and perfectly relax during the process. We men 
and women turn night into day and lose three or 
four hours at the beginning of our night's rest; 
consequently we depend on the alarm clock to 
rouse us when we should be sleeping, and we sleep 
under a usual nervous tension, brought on by home 
or business cares, midnight pleasures, or beds and 
bed clothes and bed-rooms that have no bearing 
at all on the matter of sleep. For most people 
in American civilization, the healthful hours of 
sleep are from ten p. M. to six or seven A. M. 
Once or twice a week it is permissible, and I think 
psychologically desirable, to postpone bedtime an 
hour or so ; and occasionally, to vary the monotony 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



of things, one may even stay up all night. But a 
fixed and wholesome retiring hour is one of the 
imperative needs of our life. Incomplete and in- 
sufficient sleep is a large factor in the host of 
nervous troubles now afflicting Americans. 

The bed is the most important piece of furni- 
ture in the house. One of the bad habits of 
American life is the prevalence of the narrow 
single bed, which violates the principle of the ne- 
cessity of motion obtaining even in rest. No man 
can sleep right on a couch three feet wide. Un- 
consciously, we change our posture during sleep 
— it is no more natural to hold the same position 
during eight hours of slumber than during eight 
hours of waking consciousness. The bed should 
be wide enough and long enough to allow full 
stretching, in comfort, on all sides. A thick, sani- 
tary mattress, warranted to stay smooth; a set of 
unbreakable springs, affording the utmost buoy- 
ance; an outfit of coverlets extra long to tuck in 
well at the bottom; a thin pillow, and a porous 
night garment everywhere loose, particularly 
around the neck; — these are a few essentials of 
natural sleep. The great principle is to keep the 
feet warm and head cool, as the depth of slum- 
ber is proportional to the departure of blood from 
the head. The pillow should be less than six 
inches through, and as hard as may be comforta- 

[196] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



ble. Soft, thick pillows are made for soft, thick 
heads. 

3. Natural Exercise. — The animals are forced 
to exercise, in order to obtain food; but their 
play consists of exercise, which is to them not irk- 
some but enjoyable. The opposite holds among 
men. The higher a man gets, the more he sits. 
Nothing can ever take the place of outdoor physi- 
cal exercise, which is the automatic regulator of 
digestion, respiration, circulation, elimination. 
Every brainworker, to keep " fit " mentally as well 
as physically, should have an hour in the open 
every day, occupying himself with a brisk walk, a 
horseback ride, an athletic game, or some other 
physiological tonic in the form of muscular move- 
ment. 

4. Natural Baths. — The animals are given a 
constant process of hardening and health — en- 
sured by having their bodies exposed to the 
weather. Likewise, the human body was made 
to be rained upon — see how quickly the small 
boy hastens out, umbrella-less and unbeknownst, 
into the midst of a summer shower. A primary 
sign of health is that you enjoy a bath, whatever 
the season of the year. But a cold bath should 
never meet a cold body; and, unless one has a 
great store of reserve energy, the morning ablu- 
tion should be tempered sufficiently to avoid shock. 

[197] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



It is said that water may be used in a thousand 
different ways, for the preservation or recovery 
of health. Every man, woman and child should 
know on principle and by experience the kind and 
number and variation of the baths, weekly or 
daily, best suited to the temperament, nature and 
need of the individual. 

5. Natural Air. — The animals continually 
bathe their lungs in oxygen, they do not fear 
" drafts," they let the refreshing, invigorating 
breezes play on their bodies day and night, sum- 
mer and winter, the whole year through. But in 
our cities, where human animals are supposed to 
be most efficient, there are thousands of shops, fac- 
tories, tenements and flats whose inhabitants never 
get pure air till hot weather makes them open the 
windows. Airing a house once a day is not 
enough — every window should be kept always 
open, if only an inch at the top. There are pat- 
ent ventilators which deflect the cold currents of 
outside air and gradually diffuse the oxygen 
through the room. A most healthful habit is to 
take an air-bath just before going to bed, wearing 
simply bath-robe and sandals and moving briskly 
about for ten or fifteen minutes, all windows be- 
ing wide open. We do not fear exposure to the 
elements, we fear exposure of our fear of the ele- 
ments. Anybody who has outgrown the fear of 

[198] 



HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



pure air sufficiently to try a sleeping porch for a 
few months will tell you how impossible it is for 
a really healthy person to sleep in the four great 
walls and one little window that we call a bed- 
room. 

6. Sunshine. — The animals are vitalized, dis- 
infected and asepticized by sunshine, which is the 
greatest germicide, cleanser and tonic known to 
science. If a way could be invented to bottle sun- 
light, and sell it to sick folks at an exorbitant 
price, the inventor would be a billionaire in no 
time at all. We need more windows in our 
houses, for not one house in fifty has enough. A 
house should be regarded merely as a frame for 
sunlight. Every man who builds a home should 
plan a sun parlor for it; a sun parlor is much more 
hygienic than a society parlor. I would not, in 
fact, recommend that much light be admitted to 
an ordinary parlor; this, being a stuckup kind of 
room, would melt if the sun fell on it. In every 
disease there is a broad streak of artificiality. 

Let us flood our homes and hearts with light; 
let us tear away the heavy curtains from our win- 
dows and our minds; let us realize that health is 
only truth made over into life. And to have truth 
direct we must seek God and Nature. God is 
healer of the soul, Nature is healer of the body; 
when we have learned and applied this fact, we 

[199] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



shall mightily increase the length and the strength 
of our lives. For the way to be well is not to swal- 
low something, but to learn something - — then 
live it! 

HEALTH EFFICIENCY GAUGE 

For General Determination of the Health Probabilities 
of a Normal Individual 

DIRECTIONS. Where the following items have 
been made a part of your health equipment, place the 
numeral 5 in blank space opposite. Add numerals for 
your health efficiency grade. 

1. Freedom from pain, weakness, and all fear 

of disease 

2. Vigorous belief that it is vastly better to 

prevent disease than to wait to cure it. . 

3. Choice, amount and time of meals based 

on hunger alone 

4. Average bedtime ten o'clock, and fifty-six 

hours of sleep a week. . . ., 

5. Daily exercise in open air, and enjoyment 

of same 

6. Thorough perspiration at least once a week 

7. Morning bath, with brisk rub following. . 

8. Summer vacation where swimming, boat- 

ing, tramping, etc., available 

9. Cultivation of a garden, if only in a back- 

yard 

10. All clothing made loose and comfortable, 

hygienic before stylish 

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HYGIENE AND EFFICIENCY 



11. Windows in home and office never en- 

tirely closed 

12. Habit of deep, slow, diaphragmatic 

breathing 

13. Correct posture while sitting, standing, 

walking 

14. Frequent air and sun baths 

15. Sanitary methods and appliances where 

you live and where you work 

16. Knowledge of mental and spiritual factors 

in health 

17. Examination by physician, dentist, oculist, 

once a year at least, for signs of warning 

18. Independence of all health fads or cults. . 

19. Refusal to worry over anything 

20. Absorbing interest in your work 



Total equals general percentage of 
your health status. It should be 
80, though the average is probably 
not over 35. 

NOTE. This Gauge does not include the mention 
of particular symptoms, because their discovery and treat- 
ment belong in the realm of the physician. 

Copyright, 191 5, by Edward Earle Purinton 



[201] 



CHAPTER VIII 
MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



MONEY is the measure of service ren- 
dered the community. Every young 
man, at the outset of his career, should 
be given this conception and ideal of wealth. 

The world's greatest fortunes were based on the 
development of a public utility — whether oil, 
coal, steel, sugar, land, lumber, street cars or news- 
papers. Wealth is the willingness to serve, plus 
the wisdom to do it properly. 

A man who does a useful thing better than any 
one else is in direct line for prosperity. Thus the 
incomes of the greatest surgeons, composers, ac- 
tors, inventors, are in the hundreds of thousands, 
equaling the profits of business men and financiers 
of like achievement. The union of the highest 
possible degree of skill and service always pro- 
duces ample money rewards — we need not, should 
not, pursue wealth for its own sake. 

[202] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



There are two false views of money. One 
regards money as all-essential, the other holds it 
non-essential. Money is the one thing everybody 
needs through life — and it is the one thing no- 
body learns, scientifically and satisfactorily, how 
to regard, obtain, conserve and use. Health, 
beauty, popularity, genius, opportunity, even home 
and happiness — none of these are necessary; we 
can do our work, mold our fate, without them. 
But try to live one day without either cash or 
credit, and you find your efficiency gone ; for you 
cannot employ help, or serve clients, or buy a 
newspaper, or live in a house, or burn fuel, or eat 
and drink. Why then be unwilling to face the 
money problem squarely, recognize the universal 
need for a science of finance, and dignify earning 
capacity with true spiritual meaning? 

Doubtless we have all been tempted to wish that 
money had never been invented. I know I have 
— particularly when I didn't have as much as I 
thought I could use beneficially. But money is 
only mind in its most concentrated form, and as 
such it belongs in the evolution of a man or a 
nation. The life-cycle of every individual includes 
four stages or epochs — namely, those of Body, 
Heart, Brain, Soul. In the first, our organs and 
muscles develop, in the second our affections and 
emotions, in the third our talents and ambitions, 
[203] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



in the fourth our inspirations and aspirations. 
The world is now in its brain-epoch, so the world 
decrees that a man, to live in the world, must have 
money. But a weak or defective brain is a brain 
that the soul has not yet fully occupied ; hence, the 
brain of a pauper is somehow lacking in spiritual 
energy. Self-support is fundamental to self-re- 
spect. 

There is no mental or spiritual freedom without 
financial responsibility. This is why the science 
of finance should be preached in our churches. 

There is no healthy citizenship without the 
steady capacity of earning a good living. This is 
why the science of finance should be taught in our 
schools, factories and shops. 

There is no sweet and quiet and comfortable 
home life without the assurance of a regular, 
ample, honorable income. This is why the science 
of finance should be made the corner-stone of every 
hearth. 

Money is the hinge of present human relation- 
ships. Losing balance on this point, we fall into 
social chaos, represented by the strife between 
capital and labor, the dispute between scholasti- 
cism and vocationalism, the war between German 
militarism and English territorialism. All great 
battles are battles over money. Take the value 
out of money and the bottom would fall out of 

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MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



vice. The penury of idealists and the profligacy 
of materialists together delay the millennium; and 
I believe that penury is as great a weakness as 
profligacy is a crime. 

The burden of hundreds of letters received in 
our office has been, " How can I earn more money, 
gain financial independence, and thus have time 
and strength for some real service to humanity? " 
A great institution might well be founded, for the 
sole purpose of teaching men, women and chil- 
dren a practical, modern science of finance. Vo- 
cational schools, efficiency courses, domestic science 
clubs, city employment bureaus and committees, 
church labor conferences — these all are steps 
toward financial freedom, but they do not move 
swiftly enough, broadly enough, deeply enough. 
The quickest way to learn life is to earn a living; 
and we are here for the purpose of learning life. 

College students who never earn a dollar till 
after graduation are moral parasites. They are 
as useful to society as barnacles to a ship. I 
look forward to the time when schools will be 
themselves graded as they now grade their pupils. 
A college student who falls below sixty per cent 
in a given study thereupon is debarred and dis- 
graced. Why not, with equal justice, pass a law 
that a college which fails to prepare sixty per 
cent of its graduates for guaranteed self-support 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



the first year after graduation shall be publicly cen- 
sured and deprived of funds from the state or in- 
dividual donors, until the required grade in mone- 
tary efficiency shall be attained by the curriculum? 

If I, being a parent of a youth of twenty or 
thereabouts, and having expended thousands of 
dollars on his college course, should find that he 
was not earning a good living six months after 
graduation — I would sue the college for the re- 
turn of my money! Some day some father will 
do this. And when he does we shall be given 
some new light on the function and process of edu- 
cation, in its bearing on money matters. 

Few of our clerks, grumbling over their meager 
$10 a week, know the price that millionaires pay 
to become millionaires. Wealth is the world's 
hardest taskmaster. 

A friend of mine earns more in a day than he 
used to receive in a month. I asked him how he 
had found the secret of prosperity. He smiled — 
but there was sorrow in his eyes — and he an- 
swered, " Your magic secret is in self-denial. I 
make fifty dollars where I used to make one. I do 
it by foregoing pleasures that most men require; 
by overcoming an artistic temperament and keep- 
ing my life as regular as a clock ; by working before 
my helpers reach the office in the morning and 
after they leave at night; by looking for the 

[206] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



hardest thing and doing that first. Money-mak- 
ing is easy to a selfish man. I am making money 
to prove that an artist and altruist need not neces- 
sarily be a fool. When I get that done, I shall 
say something to the world." My friend's reply 
interested me, it may interest you. Every captain 
of finance was first a captain of romance ; this fact 
should be taught every laborer — light on labor 
means love for labor. 

But in managing their household finances, our 
great business men are simpletons and wastrels. 
The butler gets his little graft; the cook feeds her 
friends on the sly; the son of the house " hits the 
Governor for a hundred bucks " ; the daughter 
of the house coaxes Daddy Dear to buy her a de- 
butante frock worth twenty times what her 
mother's gingham dress used to cost. The mod- 
ern curse of extravagance should be laid at the 
doors of American husbands and fathers, who 
have never learned scientific management of the 
household purse. If they ran their business at 
such loose ends their business would go to the 
dogs. 

If I believed in agitation, I would start an agita- 
tion on behalf of the downtrodden American rich 
child, who never gets a chance to earn money and 
acquire self-respect. My ancestors were compara- 
tively poor, and one of the earliest ambitions I 

[207] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



recall was to earn some real money of my own. 
So I formed a business partnership with another 
lad who was also very much a man, having just 
ascended into short trousers along with me. Our 
folks had a meadow on the hillside, through which 
ran a beautiful stream. Here lay a fine bed of 
watercress, which is an ideal tonic and garnishment 
for meat or salad. My partner, being a good 
salesman, canvassed the neighboring kitchens for 
advance orders, while I, being a good prospector, 
went klondiking for cress. 

By the close of the second day in business, my 
net profit was sixteen cents. I was then too rich 
to go back to the huckster trade, so fitted up a 
candy store on the sidewalk, with an umbrella for 
a booth. But shortly it appeared that candy 
would not sell in hot weather, and an efficient mer- 
chant must handle a staple product. So, having a 
natural gift for drawing, I invested my capital 
in pens and inks and art books ; and ere long was 
earning fifty cents an hour, lettering diplomas for 
the schools of the college town that was my native 
heath. For a boy, this was good pay. I was very 
proud, and did the work so well that the measly 
chap in the art school who wanted my job didn't 
get it till I outgrew it. 

This delightful jump, from eight cents a day 
to fifty cents an hour, so fascinated me with the 

[208] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



joy of watching money grow by initiative and 
good work that I have never lost the stimulus of 
that boyish enterprise. Would that every child 
were inspired or compelled, by parents and teach- 
ers, to gain by a similar experience. Moralists 
tell us that " money is the root of all evil " ; but 
they fail to tell us that the only way to uproot an 
evil is to " dig" for it! The act of turning an 
honest dollar is in itself a means of grace. 

May we here suggest a few of the rudiments 
in a science of finance, that coming generations will 
learn as a matter of course, but that we have not 
yet formulated? 

Every child should be taught scientifically how 
to earn money, to spend money, to save money, 
and to give money away. I do not know, or 
know of, any child who is being so taught. 

A youth or maiden sent through college with- 
out having earned at least one year's tuition has 
been given a false start in life, and must overcome 
a serious handicap — social, industrial, financial, 
mental and moral. Every town, village, farm 
and home in this country (save in the case of ex- 
treme poverty) offers excellent opportunities for 
boys and girls to make money. Parents should 
locate, study and classify these opportunities, and 
should inspire and instruct the children for their 
use. Care should be taken to avoid fictitious 

[209] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



values; a child should not be paid more than a 
stranger would receive for doing little jobs around 
the house, nor paid for any service without in- 
trinsic value. Example : to pay a child for deny- 
ing himself cream on strawberries is bad business 
and worse ethics, but to pay him for helping to 
milk the cow or scald the milk pan is good econ- 
omy, good health and good religion. 

The purchasing power of a dollar is one of the 
next lessons for parents to teach. A dollar buys 
a fair meal in a stylish restaurant. The same dol- 
lar spent in a grocery for beans, potatoes, bread, 
salad, cheese, apples, onions, prunes, cereals and 
malt coffee buys not one meal, but four or five 
meals — and the food is likely to be purer than 
the restaurant fare. Do we eat style or eat nutri- 
tion? 

A good way to teach children the advantages of 
economy would be to offer a prize for the child 
who could buy the most and best food for a dollar 
— quantity, quality, purity, palatability, and nutri- 
tional value of the foods all being considered. (I 
imagine, however, that somebody would first have 
to offer a prize for parents who had sense enough 
to make the award.) 

Another illustration of scientific buying: the 
professional men of my home town pay $25 and 
upward for a hand-tailored suit of clothes. When 

[210] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



I first came to New York, fifteen years ago, I 
took a day or two off and personally investigated 
dozens of tailoring shops. I found one where 
special sales were held at certain times and a 
made-to-order suit could be had for $16, equal in 
fabric, style and wear to the $25 suit back home, 
the difference in price being a result of the volume 
of output of the city shop. Here is a case where 
living in New York is cheaper, yet how many 
buyers of men's clothes in New York have found 
this out? One of the principles of success for a 
young man is that he should not be ashamed to 
wear a $16 suit of clothes — provided the suit 
looked, fitted and wore well. 

The principle of modern philanthropists who 
donate money to colleges might well be followed 
by parents in the home. Thus, give the child a 
certain allowance for dress, books, charity, pleas- 
ure and so forth, but stipulate that a percentage 
be earned by the child. To a reasonable limit, 
for every quarter of a dollar actually earned by 
the child, seventy-five cents would be added by the 
parent. This method is most valuable in starting 
a savings bank account for children. It should 
certainly be adopted in the matter of " pin- 
money.' J The trouble with pin-money is that it al- 
ways means a sticking point for somebody. 

Every housekeeping cost should be standard- 
[211] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



ized, and regular allowance made for this, as for 
the rent or the taxes. These cost appropriations 
should include rent, food, clothing, heat, light, 
books and papers, charity and hospitality, church, 
travel, amusements, wages, help, laundry, carfare, 
incidentals, and so forth. The housekeeper in the 
wife should know and maintain the scientific 
standard of costs, which the provider in the hus- 
band should pay, promptly and sweetly. But woe 
to you, Mr. Husband, if you presume to standard- 
ize your lady's gowns, or charge her matinee 
tickets on the same account with the coal bill! 
This would be a glaring example of emotional in- 
efficiency. 

Two great elements in the science of finance are 
a stock of immediate cash and a growing reserve 
fund. The trademark of a steady character is 
ready coin. To be low in cash is to be low in cau- 
tion, or skill, or both. There are different ways 
for a natural spendthrift to learn to hold on to his 
money. He may ask a miserly friend to keep a 
certain amount in trust — and not give the owner 
a dollar save in dire extremity. He may secure 
a hundred-dollar bill, or a ten-dollar or five-dollar 
goldpiece, and resolve not to break it unless the 
need is a matter of starvation. He may buy a 
post office money order payable to himself at a 
place most inaccessible, which would prevent his 

[212] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



cashing the order without a deal of trouble. He 
may purchase a bond or a guaranteed stock for 
$100; he may start a postal savings account; he 
may invest in a piece of property, having taken 
all the necessary precautions to avoid loss by de- 
preciation ; he may take out a life insurance policy 
on the endowment plan; he may borrow money 
from a building and loan company, and gradually 
pay for a home of his own. Are you saving at 
least twenty per cent of your income? If not, 
how are you going to begin? To emerge from 
the ranks of the economic failures is to have better 
health and better character — to say nothing of 
better temper. The ultimate check on worry is 
a check on the bank. 

Here is an interesting experiment for one who 
has not yet reduced his expenses to a satisfactory 
basis. Prepare an estimate of the percentage of 
your income that should be devoted to the specific 
necessaries of life, such as rent, food, clothing, 
books, amusements, charity, hospitality, and so 
forth. Take rent, for example. This should not 
exceed twenty per cent of your gross income. If 
you earn $200 a month, you should really not pay 
more than $30 monthly rent (fifteen per cent of 
the gross). There are thousands of people in 
New York who pay a full week's salary, or over, 
each month, for rent alone, merely to " keep up 
[213] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



appearances " in a fancy-looking apartment house. 
When a brownstone front is a false front, a thatch 
front is better. 

After you have judged what each of your ex- 
pense items should be on a percentage plan, call 
your folks together and get their opinion. Hav- 
ing made the estimates unanimous, keep strict 
account of all your expenditures for a month, and 
let each member of the family do the same. You 
will be surprised at the way in which certain items 
overrun their normal appropriation, and will be in 
a position to reorganize your finances on a more 
scientific basis. 

Signs are here of a great revolution. Public 
sentiment is waking to the financial and economic 
truths underlying real education. A Brooklyn 
public school recently established a savings bank 
system, and we understand that during the first 
two years of its operation $10,000, mostly in 
dimes, nickels and pennies, were deposited by the 
children. A New York high school has taught 
the girl graduates to make their own graduation 
gowns, and has fixed a limit of expense — $1.50, 
as I recall — for the materials in each dress. An 
Indiana community school has furnished the chil- 
dren of miners and mill workers with a little piece 
of ground, a package of seeds — flowers for the 

[214] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



girls and vegetables for the boys — and is teach- 
ing the little folks how to become producers and 
craftsmen. A Massachusetts board of health, co- 
operating with a hygienist-chemist, has revolution- 
ized the eating habits of the town by showing 
high school pupils how to analyze, compare, select, 
buy and cook the foods that enter the home. 
Other schools and corporations have adopted 
similar methods of training in efficiency and econ- 
omy the young people under their charge. 

A society has recently been formed to promote 
American thrift by families, corporations and indi- 
viduals. A Consumers' League instructs women 
how to buy the necessaries of life economically 
and well. The Association for Improving the 
Condition of the Poor in New York issues through 
its Dietician House Expense Account, blanks and 
records which make it easy for housekeepers to 
handle their accounts in systematic and convenient 
shape. These blanks, in connection with the 
budgets which families are helped in drawing up, 
establish the finances of the average charity family 
on a better basis than that reached by the average 
middle class family. 

A clarifying word may be needed, in closing. 
A man may be so rich in heart, mind and soul that 
physical riches look like baubles to him. Thou- 

[215] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



sands of men are not able to amass large sums of 
money. Tens of thousands are not willing to — 
the sacrifice of time and strength involved would 
not seem worth while, compared with all the finer 
objects of endeavor. 

The real motive in working toward financial in- 
dependence is to fulfil our just obligations, care 
wisely for our loved ones, live free of penury and 
worry, command the leisure and opportunity for 
self-culture and broad human service. Only on 
such a basis of altruism and idealism does wealth 
become desirable, its pursuit enjoyable and profit- 
able. The reason for having money is that we 
may not have to think about getting it. 



EFFICIENCY MONEY CHART 
For Any Self-Supporting Man or Woman 

DIRECTIONS. When the answer to a given query 
is " Yes," write 5 in the space at the left. When the 
answer is " No," or indeterminate, leave space blank. 
Find your percentage in money efficiency by adding 
numerals in column thus prepared. This test, while in- 
complete, is fair and approximately true. 

I. Have you set for yourself a definite earn- 
ing capacity toward which you are 
working? ...... 

[216] 



MONEY AND EFFICIENCY 



2. Do you possess, or are you in direct line 

for, an income of at least $5000 a year? 

3. Dt> you know how much money is being 

made by the most successful man in 
your line ? 

4. Have you found and are you removing the 

causes for your failure to earn that 
much? , 

5. Have you studied the life, aims and meth- 

ods of any great financier, merchant, or 
philanthropist ? 

6. Is your present income greater than your 

father's was at your age ? 

7. Are you living within your means ? 

8. Are you keeping out of debt ? 

9. Do you pay your bills promptly? 

10. Have you located the best and cheapest 

available groceries, restaurants, tailor- 
shops, stores, etc. ? 

11. Are you free from the mistake of confus- 

ing " expensive " with " good "? 

12. Can you refrain from buying bargains 

when they do not meet a real need ? . . . 

13. Can you cheerfully go without luxuries, 

to save money for a purpose ? 

14. Are you saving at least twenty per cent 

of your weekly or monthly salary ? . . . . 

15. Do you put your savings regularly into a 

safe, permanent investment ? 

16. Have you one or more investments yield- 

ing at least four per cent return ? 

17. Have you a good balance in a sound bank? 

18. Can you borrow money on your credit?. . 

[217] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



19. Are all your expenses standardized — do 

you know what each personal, house- 
hold, and business item should cost ? . . . 

20. Have you resolved to amass a competency 

— then do something in life more valu- 
able than making money ? 

Total equals your percentage 
in money efficiency 

Copyright, 1915, by Edward Earle Purinton 



[218] 



CHAPTER IX 
THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



THE average brain is purely ornamental. 
We call it ornamental because it isn't 
useful and it must be something. 
Though how a detriment can be an ornament, 
none but a blind man can see. 

The human brain is a detriment, a nuisance and 
a hindrance until it becomes self-regulating. For 
it makes us worse than the animal we have been, 
less than the angel we might be, poorer and sicker 
and weaker than the ordinary human we now are. 
A blessing unused changes to a curse. Brains un- 
used impede their owner; brains misused lead him 
astray. 

Who or what runs your brain? 
Does heredity, or environment, or public opin- 
ion, or family custom, or bigotry, or laziness, or 
anxiety, or folly, or the pay envelope? Then you 
are more or less of a mental paralytic. For every 
[219] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



influence on your brain, outside of you, cripples 
that brain. 

Run your own brain and you are bound to be 
great. Genius is only a mind in command of it- 
self. 

The average man's brain is warped, clogged, 
and begrimed; warped with selfishness, clogged 
with other people's ideas, begrimed with coarse 
and ugly thoughts. The average woman's brain 
is feeble, rusty and spasmodic; feeble with diffi- 
dence, rusty with disuse, spasmodic with emotional 
stress. Between the two, there is more hope for 
the woman's brain; you can polish up an unused 
machine sooner than you can make over one that 
is battered out of shape. 

How many people that you know are capable 
of thorough, clear, unprejudiced, systematic, orig- 
inal, constructive, energetic thought? The few 
who are have succeeded — the many who are not 
have failed. All success germinates in the mind, 
all failure proceeds therefrom. 

A few ages hence, when the world has tired of 
its mad absorption in the external things, our 
descendants will look back on this our alleged civ- 
ilization, and smile in pity and disdain, remark- 
ing, " What a barbarous race — they could not 
even think for themselves ! " 

What are the modern uses of the mind? 
[220] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



Those which enable the user to handle him- 
self, in all the crises of human experience. 

Go to our largest, most progressive, institutions 
of learning and what do you find? Laboratories 
of applied psychology, where thoughts, emotions, 
and desires are weighed, measured and compared: 
social service methods by which the everyday prob- 
lems of ordinary people are met fairly and solved 
rationally; departments of manual training that 
give the ambitious youth a working knowledge of 
actual wage-earning power; mental, psychic, or 
semi-religious clinics devoted to the regaining and 
maintaining of health by establishing a cheerful, 
hopeful, state of mind. Many leading educators 
are now literally absorbed in activities of this kind. 
There is no field of study so fascinating, so pro- 
ductive, so rich in manifold possibilities. Learn 
how to think and the world is yours. 

Some of the conclusions of modern psychol- 
ogists are briefly stated below. They may be en- 
tirely correct; and they may not. They will be 
valuable to you in proportion as you challenge 
their correctness and proceed to discover the truth 
for yourself. 

Disease-germs are only the garbage-men of the 
body. Are you afraid of the garbage-man? 

The person who " catches " disease caught the 
reasons before; dirt in his body and fear in his 

[221] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



mind. No ills are caught, all ills are self-consti- 
tuted. 

Every atom of the human organism has intelli- 
gence of its own. You can insult and benumb 
this intelligence by declaring yourself sick and 
your body unable to do its work; or you can sum- 
mon and quicken this intelligence by declaring 
yourself great and sure and strong, and bound to 
be well. Trust Mr. Stomach and tell him you be- 
lieve in him. Argue gently with Mr. Liver — 
and punch him in the side — to the end that he act 
with more vim and despatch. Give Mrs. Nerves 
some real work to do, to keep her out of mis- 
chief. And whisper to Mademoiselle Heart that 
she is the nicest thing that ever happened. 
(N. B. If you'd rather be long-faced while talk- 
ing of your anatomy, you can go to a doctor-book 
and there find surcease from all trace of humor.) 

Acute disease is but Nature's mode of house- 
cleaning. Look at " symptoms " as you would at 
brooms and dust pans. Diphtheria and small-pox 
are nothing more than that, when handled prop- 
erly. 

Knowledge is both cure and prevention. Every 
family should employ a teacher of health, and 
should trust only the physician who can be that. 

Physical habits make or unmake health. But 
physical habits grow from heredity, environment, 

[222] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



association, example — all mental conditions. So 
health starts in the mind. 

The revival of instinct cures the body, the stim- 
ulation of inspiration heals the soul. Neither of 
these is physical force. Hence the final refuge 
for the invalid lies in the sub-conscious realm — 
not in the world of pills and potions. 

There are two wise postures of the mind to- 
ward pain. You can suffer gladly, as a repentant 
sinner; or endure calmly, as a proud stoic. 
Either attitude is hygienic, take your choice. 

Only faith will cure — faith in a pill, or a 
prayer-mat, or your own divine power. Employ 
the kind of treatment you believe in. 

The subject in a hypnotic trance is unconscious 
of the existence of pain. You should learn to 
hypnotize yourself into forgetting your ailments. 
And when you stop nursing them they are likely 
to go. 

Relaxation makes a long life, concentration 
makes a strong one. Keep the balance and you 
gain both longevity and prosperity. 

A clear conscience is the greatest health-pre- 
servative ; most sick people have a muddy one. A 
clear conscience makes you sleep soundly, breathe 
deeply, stand straight, eat with relish, smile often, 
maintain composure, love your neighbor, grip 
yourself, and forge ahead. 

[223] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



^vocational training is the coming form of edu- 
cation. Every child was born to be something 
special. To find what that something is, and give 
it full expression, is the real work of a teacher. 

Genius will study only what it likes. Be care- 
ful in judging a backward or wayward boy; he may 
be a fool or an imp — and he may be a genius. 

The science of play is quite as important as the 
science of study. Recreation is the one form of 
activity which to a child means both physiology 
and psychology. Play with your child if you 
would possess his heart. 

Real education alternates mental exercise with 
manual work. It is better to give a child some- 
thing to do and nothing to study than something 
to study and nothing to do. For action produces 
thought — while thought does not necessarily pro- 
duce action. 

Memory is mostly at war with originality. 
Stuff a child's brain with facts and you leave no 
room in his mind for ideas. The questions chil- 
dren ask — not the books they quote — are the 
true educators. Answer your pupil's query before 
you make him recite. 

A sensible examination for a student would be 
graded, not on what he can recall, but on what he 
can use. Most examinations are stomach-pumps, 
instead of exercisers. Examine your student's 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 









daily life — not his monthly or quarterly cram- 
ming-process — if you would gage his develop- 
ment wisely. 

The personal life of a parent or teacher is what 
the child really studies — the words being mere 
indexes to the life. Some day, parents and teach- 
ers will be trained in the crucial science of setting 
a good example. Then, and only then, will our 
schools mold character. 

Emotions are many times as powerful as 
thoughts. Why do not our schools and colleges 
train the young to express emotions, understand 
instincts, voice desires, attain ambitions, and be 
equipped for life? 

The danger in all education is pedantry. No 
boy or girl should be allowed to go through col- 
lege without doing something to earn money, mix- 
ing with common people, and seeing the world as 
it is outside of books. 

The height of education is emulation. Give 
your boy a hero to study, give your girl a queenly 
woman to admire, give yourself a personified ideal 
to embody. Thus will you gain the unfoldment 
which is the purpose and end of teaching. 

The science of parenthood is greater than all 
other sciences combined. Nothing is taught of 
this, in our schools and homes. Why? 

Unless you feel at one with the flowers and the 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



stars; unless you are able to help the weak, lift 
the fallen, and cheer the broken-hearted; unless 
you love the whole world and see good in every- 
thing; unless you dare be yourself at any cost — 
your " education has been neglected." 

Science and religion do not conflict, any more 
than food and perfume. But if a chef tried to run 
a flower-garden or a gardener to serve a table- 
d'hote, there would probably be trouble. When 
scientists know the heart and soul and religionists 
know the mind and body, every laboratory will be 
a chancel, every shrine a workshop. 

Healthy amusement is a phase of religion. So 
is every other human activity properly conducted. 
Nothing can be too human — if animated by a 
divine consciousness. 

Every church should be open every day in the 
week; for meditation, music, teaching, healing, 
and comforting. As time goes on, we may expect 
less preaching in the sanctuary — but more loving 
and more serving. 

Goodness void of greatness is not goodness. 
Life must be either growth or decay. And he 
who fails to develop greatness, though he observe 
the forms of goodness, shrivels in his soul. 

The man who condemns lacks character. 
Character means suffering, suffering means erring; 
erring means trying and not knowing how. 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



There is no saint but the saint who loves sinners ; 
loves them because he knows their struggle and has 
felt the bruise of the wanderer seeking light. 

Sin is largely excess of power, misunderstood or 
ill-directed. Not through forced punishment, but 
through wise and glad self-expression, is the crim- 
inal to be reclaimed. 

Creeds conflict because creeds are mental; and 
minds differ. Put religion in the heart, where it 
belongs, and the hopeless infidel turns believer. 

Those who fear the destruction of the Bible 
never understood the Bible. Truth cannot be de- 
stroyed; and what can be destroyed is not truth. 

Glossaries and commentaries on the scriptures 
are superfluous. You find therein your own les- 
son — or you find none. 

Miracles may be explained on the basis of natu- 
ral law. But the man who explains them never 
yet performed them! A supernatural law does 
exist, of which the world's law-exponents are yet in 
ignorance. 

Nothing in all " advanced thought " equals the 
power in the summons of the old church bell. 
Perish the bigotry, fear, gloom, of the old intol- 
erant creed; but revive the sweetness, beauty, 
reverence, of the old childlike faith. 

They try to call prayer a form of autosugges- 
tion; but no species of mechanical autosuggestion 

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ever taught a man how to use prayer. The whirl- 
wind is air; but no chemist by analyzing air may 
conjure up the whirlwind. How God must smile 
in pity at our feeble metaphysical theories raised 
in blind presumption to account for the vast, un- 
known, overpowering sublimities of the Universe. 

First lesson for parents: your child is not 
your property; but an independent soul needing 
guidance as the plant needs a trellis. Would you 
scold or whip a rose bush if the bloom was not 
perfect? 

There is something in every child that responds 
to the highest appeal of which you are capable. 
Reach that something and your problem of " dis- 
cipline " is solved forever. 

Never correct a child in the presence of an- 
other ; lest resentment supplant regeneration. 

" Breaking a child's will " is breaking a parent's 
influence; making a child's will is proving a pa- 
rent's power. A headstrong baby makes a life- 
size man; add to headstrongness heartsweetness 
and your man is finished. 

People in a family need vacations from each 
other. It was never intended that four walls and 
a roof, a lineal map, and a social code should 
bound and restrict human activity. Take the dog 
and go camping once a year. Hobnob, occasion- 
ally, with Jake Jones from Nowhere Alley, whose 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



ancestors your ancestors wouldn't speak to in 
Heaven (which is impossible anyway, for pride- 
ful non-speakers don't go to Heaven). Blacken 
your face, run off to the next town, and be a star 
in a Minstrel Show. Sneak away to a vacant lot 
with the kid across the street, and play Wild In- 
jun. Do anything halfway respectable or there- 
abouts, to break up the humdrum, sleepy-hollow, 
heavier-than-lead, , plumb-dumb domesticity that 
halters and hampers and holds you down. N. B. 
Take your wife along — she needs a change worse 
than you do. 

" Company manners " are family underminers; 
" good enough for the home folks " being the last 
funeral wail of the gravedigger of self-re- 
spect. 

A good rule for the dining room : anybody that 
complains of the food, or gossips, or criticizes, 
shall deposit one cent in the Behavior Box; said 
receptacle to be opened monthly and the contents 
expended according to the wish of the person hav- 
ing the fewest fines. 

Where children are impolite, the relation be- 
tween them and the parents is artificial. Confi- 
dence begets courtesy; and every lad would be- 
come a Lord Chesterfield at his best if his parents 
knew and trusted him from the heart out. 

Homes make goodness but not greatness. The 

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chronic family vice is smallness. Form the habit 
of discussing at home the great events, great indi- 
viduals, great discoveries, and great possibilities 
that lift human life above the horizon and extend 
the vision to the realm of the Superman. 

The rights of the unborn child are these : to be 
equally desired by both parents, with ardor, un- 
selfishness, idealism; and to be prepared for with 
all the scientific knowledge to be had. If we 
could analyze the hidden causes of things, we 
should find that children respect and obey their 
parents just to the degree that these prenatal 
rights have been observed. 

Pity the day when the mother eclipses the wife, 
or the father outruns the adorer*. What is parent- 
hood for but to strengthen and lengthen the light 
of loverhood? 

Things every child should be taught: to obey 
instantly and accurately; to work easily, rapidly, 
joyously; to do unpleasant tasks with a smile; to 
earn money, save money, and spend money; to be 
kind to dumb animals; to learn from those called 
inferior; to regard no difference in birth as im- 
portant; to acquire strength of body but to re- 
spect only the force of right; to find the best in 
everybody; to share all pleasures and sympathize 
with all sorrows; to plan a great life-work and 
persevere to accomplishment; to combine modesty 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



and self-reliance, tact and independence, gentle- 
ness and will power, tenderness and courage. 

The end of both thinking and feeling is 
knowing. And the joy of knowing is a joy su- 
preme. 

Knowledge and pleasure are identical. We 
cannot learn what we fail to enjoy, we cannot en- 
joy that which fails to impart a lesson. A brief 
course in trigonometry may totally ruin the mind 
of a poet; while a forced parley with the Eliza- 
bethan wordsters may divert a natural-born as- 
tronomer from his mission in life. This is the 
paradox of education; that the supreme wisdom 
lies in the choice of what we learn, but we do not 
know it until we have chosen wrong. 

The sauce piquante of pleasure is curiosity. 
And what is curiosity but eagerness to know? If 
we look back to the joys of early childhood, we 
realize how their source of charm was in the dew 
of mystery that lay upon them. The virgin thrill 
of expectation that ushers enjoyment into our 
lives is perhaps the sweetest thrill of all. We are 
then on the' point of knowing, radiant with the 
glamour that shines across the enchanted threshold 
of a wider experience. Either innocence, or un- 
derstanding, lifts pleasure from the realm of the 
earthly into the domain of the spiritual. Inno- 
cence would know, understanding does know; and 

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where knowing is the beginning of feeling, the end 
is pure delight. 

Anticipation is held more ecstatic than posses- 
sion. Why? Because the former is a continua- 
tion, but the latter a cessation, of our human de- 
sire to know. This should not be. Pleasure of 
itself never palls, but only the impurity that we 
ignorantly mix with pleasure. In the dregs of the 
cup of joy lies the proof of its righteousness. 
And to be sated with anything is to have been un- 
sanctified. 

Pity the man who mourns the lost delights of 
his youth; he has merely stopped growing. If 
happiness were effervescence, children would be 
happy; but happiness is not. Happiness is a clean 
and brave progression into larger fields of knowl- 
edge. And by virtue of our immortality, we 
should be happiest on our death-day. If knowl- 
edge of life does not mean consciousness of 
Heaven, our learning has been faulty, or incom- 
plete. 

The joy of knowing is evidenced in a homely 
illustration that every good old-fashioned child 
will recognize. Didn't you use to tell your 
mother what you liked best for dinner; and then 
— lots and lots of times — beg her not to let you 
know what you were going to have until you came 
to the feast? Surprises are lovely because they 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



contain many sorts of knowledge given all at once. 

Doctors claim that stiffened blood-vessels are 
the first mark of advancing age. Don't you be- 
lieve it; old age first appears not in sluggish ar- 
teries but in sluggish anticipations. It is a vain 
exertion to get up in the morning unless a feeling 
of buoyancy pulls you out of bed and into work. 
The elixir of life is expectancy. Those who have 
gained approach to this font require no other stim- 
ulant. Never scold the child who gets into " mis- 
chief." He is an original investigator, tempora- 
rily side-tracked. The goodness that is all grace 
and no gumption belongs on a tombstone under 
the weeping- willow trees. And the boy that never 
makes trouble never makes anything else. 

There is a tragedy, however, in our unappeas- 
able thirst for knowledge ; — the ghastly price of 
it. What would a man not give for the generous 
impulse, fond hope, tender fancy and bright illu- 
sion that he has paid, little by little, for his 
worldly-wisdom? Life grows worse than empty 
with the passing of the dream from our eyes. So 
much of our painfully acquired wisdom is false; 
and I would that every teacher, every minister, 
every physician, every parent, might learn first of 
all to distinguish the real. Babies dying by the 
tens of thousands for lack of proper care and 
wholesome nourishment; children the world over 

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diligently gathering knowledge of their source 
from the gutter instead of from the shrine ; youths 
being trained by rote with the hideous object of 
making a living because they fear to die ; lads and 
lassies marrying, wholly unprepared — entering 
the great dim sanctuary of life with a jest on their 
lips and the dust of the highway on their gar- 
ments; women bravely suffering and men grimly 
slaving that their offspring may have the mere 
chance to grow; nations devoting vast fortunes to 
the equipage of armies while the poor cry for 
bread and the lonely plead for kindness; society 
worshiping titles and riches, leaving the man of 
genius to work unaided and perish of want; whole 
communities buried in gossip — and countless 
worlds holding out their mysteries for man to ex- 
plore; schools teaching everything but how to 
live; prisons made to punish instead of reclaim; 
churches closed and barred six days in the week — 
though sin never even slumbers ; who can dwell on 
these pitiful things and not burn with eagerness to 
make the truth known? The poor, the sinful, the 
miserable, the ill and weak and hopeless, are 
merely untaught. Instruct and you reform; in- 
spire and you save. ; 

There are four stages of wisdom. In the first 
you know; in the second you know you know; in 
the third you know you do not know ; in the fourth 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



and last you know you need not know. Body 
knows, brain knows it knows, heart knows it does 
not know, soul knows it need not know. Each 
kind of knowing is important, none is all-sufficient. 

The majority of so-called educated people con- 
fine their awareness to their body — they require 
tangible proof or they will not believe. The 
physical sensation of handling, seeing, tasting, 
smelling, or hearing, is fundamental to perception 
in the rank and file of humanity. Try to elucidate 
an abstract principle to the average mortal and see 
what response you get. He can judge a good 
cigar, she can appraise a new bonnet, but can either 
give a logical opinion of clairvoyance, radio-activ- 
ity, reincarnation, or the symbology of the Bible? 

At the opposite extreme — the knowing of the 
intellect — we find the professional psychologist, 
metaphysician or mahatma. He can juggle the- 
ories nimbly and he takes no other exercise. He 
can tell you what your aura looks like, but he can- 
not tell you how to get the mud off it or the specks 
out of it. He is authority on the supraliminal 
ego — and ignoramus on the jungle beast that 
clothes the ego with human form. Now instinct 
must precede inspiration as walking precedes fly- 
ing. And a knowledge of how to breathe, bathe, 
eat, sleep, and exercise according to Nature, is fun- 
damental to a normal application of psychology. 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



Most children, many women, and a few sensi- 
tive men, are anchored on the heart-plane. They 
know how they feel, and that is their gage of life. 
They subsist on thrills. They idolize affection. 
They seek adoration. Their Bible is the mood 
of their friend. When their friends disappoint 
— as friends always do — they plunge at a breath 
from their mount of elation to a chaos of gloom 
thrice blacker than night. Now, every disappoint- 
ment is an interrupted lesson. And the clinging 
nature must learn that it cannot depend on aught 
save its own ideal. The heart illumines, but the 
heart cannot empower. And what we miss in our 
friendships is what we have never given to them. 

The highest plane of wisdom is the religion of 
the mystic. He knows that he has no need of 
knowledge. Poised, calm, aloof, he dwells on 
the sunlit peak of absolute faith. He has learned 
the secret of God; which is to smile and let go. 
Caring for nothing but freedom of soul, he has 
passed the human limitations that forever haunt 
men, and is clearly established where the shadows 
do not fall. This heavenly knowing is rare be- 
cause few will pay the price. Years of mental 
anguish, physical deprivation, moral heroism, must 
first be undergone. Yet this is the way of peace. 
And the soul that has the vision of its own destiny 
follows, exulting, to the end. 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



Knowledge pays most and best of all that we 
struggle to obtain. Yet how many of us know 
real knowledge when we see it ? 

" I know I can do and be what I will! " — this 
is the underpinning of true education; what col- 
lege, in all the world, is founded thereon? 
Rather, in proportion as a man is highly educated, 
does the soul too often become unknown and un- 
knowable. 

The mysteries of creation from which our vital 
forces directly proceed — who knows aught of 
them? Birth; death; sleep; genius; affinity; 
imagination; immortality; such themes constitute 
the genesis of life. Yet how many books in the 
average " well-ordered " library provide real in- 
struction on these fundamental points? 

There is no death. But from our cradle we 
are taught to stand in constant fear of mortal dis- 
solution as of an ogre defying God our Maker 
and snatching us to ruin by an outcome inevitable. 

The pronouncement of " incurable disease " is 
a wretched slander on both Nature and God. 
Yet I suppose thousands of invalids perish every 
year because some over-sure and under-knowing 
doctor tells them they can't get well. Whoever 
says can't is at best a falsifier, at worst a mur- 
derer. 

The supreme folly of a common education is in 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



cramming the brain with dead facts that have no 
relation to the needs of ordinary life. Ancient 
history, prehistoric research, foreign geography, 
nebular hypotheses, cerebral contortions of differ- 
ential calculus, merely cloud the intellect and ren- 
der the forces of initiative dull, slow and feeble. 
Knowledge that fails to become instant action must 
always remain hearsay, myth, or speculation. If 
trade-schools were to require a practical study 
of mystic philosophy, they would be worth more as 
educators than the common schools and the uni- 
versities put together. 

The brain is to the soul what the telegraph in- 
strument is to the operator. The brain receives 
and transmits impressions — that is all. Whence 
these impressions shall come, what they shall be, 
how they shall be carried out, lies with the soul to 
determine. 

There are four kinds of human wisdom: that 
of body, that of brain, that of heart, that of soul. 
Each is indispensable to character. No man is 
educated until he has been taught equally of in- 
stinct, intellect, intuition, inspiration. Yet in the 
school curriculum, we have made intellect abso- 
lute monarch, instead of a humble fourth in a bal- 
anced oligarchy. Education is all-roundness or 
nothing. [The scholar, the monk, the poet and the 

[238] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



pugilist are equally uneducated. Each has idol- 
ized one teacher, while spurning three. Each is 
one-fourth of a man. Each deserves pity. 

Instinct is the voice of Nature in the forest, in- 
tellect the voice of Man in the school or shop, in- 
tuition the voice of Woman in the home, inspira-' 
tion the voice of God in the temple, the sea, the 
sky, or the dream of a loved one. Can we fully 
chime in the chorus of joy — or have we neglected 
some primal note in life's harmony? 

FIRST EXAMPLE: KNOWLEDGE OF BODY 

A fellow-worker had been absent from the of- 
fice for a number of days. The writer, sent to 
investigate, found the young man in the depths 
of gloom. Sore throat, chills and fever, splitting 
headache, unruly stomach, nervous collapse, these 
were a few of the symptoms. The invalid was 
huddled over the fire, doing his best to catch up 
with his work but failing miserably. Suggestions 
were given him as follows: 

" Quit work absolutely; every ounce of energy 
should be left for Nature to use in the process of 
recovery. Eat nothing to-day but one light meal, 
consisting of two fresh apples and a little zweiback 
thoroughly masticated. Turn off the heat (the 
weather was mild), put your overcoat in the 

[239] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



moth-bag, and start exercising as though your life 
depended on it. Open the window, and breathe 
for a half-hour to the bottom of your lungs. 
Then go at a punching-bag with all your might. 
When you're perspiring healthily, take a vigorous 
crash-rub over the whole body, followed by a cool 
shower bath. Rest in bed for a couple of hours, 
with the room darkened and a cold-water com- 
press around your throat. Every half-hour all 
day, sip a glass of pure, soft water, not iced. 
Whenever you aren't otherwise engaged, be laugh- 
ing at your symptoms and telling them to run 
away. Just before retiring, drink a pint of hot 
lemonade, take a hot foot-bath, with a cathartic 
and enema to finish the cleansing process. Then 
sleep the sleep of the just, and expect to wake as 
fine as a fiddle. " 

The sick man, accustomed to headache powders, 
self-pity, and the idea of " eating to keep up your 
strength,'' thought such advice rather strange 
and unprecedented. But he followed it. Next 
morning he was ready for work; and more, he 
was positively radiant with the joy of knowing! 
Well-educated as the term goes, he had been all 
his life in abject ignorance of the simple rudi- 
ments of hygiene. " How to keep well " should 
be the primary lesson in every institution of learn- 
ing- 

[240] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



SECOND EXAMPLE: KNOWLEDGE OF MIND 

This friend was acutely troubled with neuritis. 
Healers, physicians, nerve-specialists, had failed 
even to diagnose the case. The man's nerves 
were on fire; he couldn't sleep, eat, exercise, or 
comply with any of the normal conditions of life. 
Delusions, hallucinations, obsessions, began to ap- 
pear; the sufferer grappled with the unspeakable 
horror of going mad. The answer to his cry for 
help was: 

" You should have been an artist, a writer, or 
a musician. You are sensitive, highly-strung, 
impressionable, idealistic. Your work is that of 
a tan-bark mule. You and your work must part 
company. The explanation of your ailment is 
this: your brain receives great thoughts, fine im- 
pulses, noble aspirations ; your body fails to carry 
them out; result, congestion at the nerve-centers 
to the degree that you keep your emotion bottled 
up. Your salvation is to express what you feel. 
Write a book, compose an oratorio, found a hos- 
pital, or lead a lost cause. That will take the 
pressure off your brain and give you a chance for 
life." 

He wrote the book. And in less than a month 
the serious complications were gone. Embryonic 
geniuses, only God can tell how many, are today 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



confined to hospitals for the insane because we 
have not learned to recognize the touch of mad- 
ness that lights the divine fire. 

THIRD EXAMPLE: KNOWLEDGE OF HEART 

A young girl of a rarely beautiful nature was 
grieving to the point of despair. The youth 
whom she idealized would not, or could not, ap- 
preciate her love. The fault lay in her blindness 
— unrequited love is an absolute impossibility. 
One of two never loves alone, they both do or 
neither does. This, however, would not do to 
tell her — a woman believes her own heart 
against all the experience of the world. We only 
asked her to try this : 

" Open a thousand chambers in your heart, and 
keep them all filled. Instead of taking from the 
man his whole affection, give yours to all the 
world. Become indispensable to your friends. 
Make them want to bring to you their joys and 
cares and sorrows. And, if the right man comes, 
nothing in the Universe can separate you." 

It is enough comment on the success of the ex- 
periment to remark that that girl today is a nun. 
She was in love with love; and she is thankful 
now that the man she did not love never loved 
her. 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



FOURTH EXAMPLE: KNOWLEDGE OF SOUL 

A very humble woman, janitress of a New- 
York apartment house, with no education to speak 
of and no culture at all, has four of the bright- 
est, sweetest children you ever saw. In response 
to the admiration I expressed, she merely ob- 
served: " So many people make a fuss over chil- 
dren and spoil them with too much attention; I 
just let them be, and watch them grow." 

Where that woman got her spiritual knowledge 
I don't know; but she has it. Just to " let them 
be " ; was a finer mode of training ever devised 
for children? There is something morally de- 
ficient in the child who never loved to " play in 
the dirt." Modern civilization tends to make 
babies nothing but little old men. A certain de- 
gree of mental and physical non-interference in 
early youth is essential to spiritual unfoldment. 
This does not mean parental irresponsibility, it 
means a sharp eye and a loving heart, acting to- 
gether. The parent who can match a child with- 
out warning it has learned the first principle of 
home administration, which is to be conscientious 
but not combative. 

At the extremes of life are the lessons. 

Women feel this, instinctively. And nothing 
delights a mischievous lady more than to upset a 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



man, wherever he is, then let him flounder for 
something new to cling to. A form of education 
most salutary if not most agreeable. 

It is reported that the wife of the world's one- 
time greatest prize-fighter calls him " My Baby 
Jim." You need not laugh at Baby Jim. One 
such pet-name, bestowed by the woman of his 
heart, teaches a man like that more than he learns 
from a hundred bloody battles waged in the fistic 
arena. If a man cannot be a hero to his wife — 
let him be a child. The wisdom of Heaven will 
permeate the world when the world has given 
every woman some one to idolize or something to 
pet. 

Should you ask me how to grow very learned, 
I would answer only this : 

Be somebody else for a while. Give your 
body, brain, heart and soul a rest from the habit- 
ual and a pleasure-jaunt into the extraordinary. 
Whatever the opposite is, do it. Change your 
studies, activities, amusements, and inclinations. 
Make friends with the people you never knew and 
did not care to know. Read the books too silly 
for any use — or too abstract for you to waste 
your time on. If you are a miser, observe how 
gracefully money sails away; if you are a socialist, 
get rich. If you enjoy smashing things, culti- 
vate silence and meditation; if you exalt the con- 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



ventions, do something breathlessly free and out- 
landish. If you, being a man, take pride in your 
foolish brain, ask God to make some woman care 
enough for you to demolish your absurd intellec- 
tualisms; if you, being a woman, despise that 
brain, wait till Providence removes the source of 
your bread-and-butter, then reflect how indispen- 
sable a superfluous thing may be. 

Briefly, the whole matter comes to this: he is 
educated who can see both sides of a question yet 
not be on the fence. To live one's own faith 
with the utmost enthusiasm — but to welcome and 
respect every man's opinion; this is the heart of 
wisdom; not how much we know but how much 
we are willing to be taught, proves our line of 
access to Omniscience. Not the trivial things we 
do but the great things we attempt hold us heirs 
of Omnipotence. Life is an attitude; and a 
thinker a god, for he makes his own. 

Mind is the fate-maker. Every man who has 
reached a great height, first thought himself there. 
How to change the map of the world : engrave an 
ambition on your own brain ! 

Civilization is the embodiment of what man 
declared could never be. Telephone, telegraph, 
steam-engine, photograph, air-ship, forty-story 
building, are the projections of the human mind 
into the realm of the impossible. Nothing desir- 
es] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



able is impossible. A miracle is the scientific 
handling of the mind. 

The average brain is a limp, loose, lopped and 
lumbered annex to us — instead of being the 
finest instrument God ever made, managing our 
body and managed by our soul. Not one college 
professor in a hundred knows the science of cor- 
rect thinking, not one clergyman in a thousand 
knows the morality produced by it, not one toiler 
in ten thousand knows the efficiency gained 
through it. Our minds are the unexplored re- 
gions of earth; and the Edison or Peary of the 
future will be the psychologist who discovers us 
to ourselves. 

The faces of the world's great men are infalli- 
ble, indelible photogravures of thought. Na- 
poleon thought of conquest, Newton thought of 
space, Mozart thought of melody, Emerson 
thought of peace, Lincoln thought of justice. 
These men thought so hard, each of the thing he 
loved most, that they plowed their way into the 
consciousness of the race. What we think for 
ourselves makes us invincible, what we think for 
others makes us immortal. 

I shall now be " practical." A teacher was 
reading one of these chapters to her class in the 
High School. Presently she noticed one of the 
boys wriggling, squirming, evidently in great pain. 

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THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



She asked him the trouble, and he burst out — 
" Oh, Teacher, I can't stand that, it makes me 
think too much!" Lest such a casualty befall 
any reader we will now, as I said, be practical. 

Here is a concrete case of thought and effi- 
ciency. For years I bought imported pencils, 
costing five to ten cents each, under the formerly 
common delusion that imported things were best. 
These pencils often blurred and broke and misbe- 
haved generally — still I kept on buying them. 
One day the inefficiency of the performance struck 
me, and I spent an hour and a dollar in buying 
samples of American pencils at an American sta- 
tionery-store. 

I found a quite satisfactory American make — 
price one cent; and a more elegant style for five 
cents. I now use the American nickel pencil at 
the office, and the American penny pencil for home 
work. I am saving 200 per cent on this item — 
and encouraging home industry. While this econ- 
omy is small, but a few dollars a year, the prin- 
ciple of it is great, applying to all our methods, 
tools and facilities — desk, filing system, station- 
ery, typewriter, carbon paper, fountain pen, book- 
rack, swivel chair, lighting-fixture, blotting-pad, 
ventilator and floor-oil ! There is a best in every- 
thing, and the reason we don't have it is because 
we don't think to get it. 

[247] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



Here is another case. I used to wake up regu- 
larly with a healthy grouch in waiting — really it 
was the healthiest thing about me. I swallowed 
a rush breakfast of ill-assorted food, and felt 
worse. Grumbled to myself all the way to the 
office, and entered with a frown. The frown was 
contagious — all frowns are — and by the middle 
of the morning we had things in a beautiful snarl. 
Lunch time — and I was a nervous wreck. More 
crazy food, more speed mania, more vicious jabs 
at everybody and everything in sight. When the 
shades of eve at last were falling, my only func- 
tion at home was to be a means of grace. 

And now? Efficiency, from the first waking- 
moment of the day. Breathing, tensing and 
stretching exercises before the open window — 
grouch gone, brain clear. Cold bath and brisk 
rubdown — blood racing, nerves tingling, mind 
eager for work. Breakfast a hot drink or fruit 
juice and water (not recommended universally, 
but the efficient breakfast for me). Slow, calm 
walk to the subway with my eyes on the hills — I 
live on high ground, chiefly to gain this early 
morning horizon. Spend 40 minutes in the sub- 
way; a wretched manner of locomotion, but part 
of the price we pay in New York for getting 
things done. No newspaper-reading on the train. 
Eyes closed, or at least mind closed, to all outer 

[248] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



impressions. Nerves and emotions at rest. 
Day's work all planned, and accomplished in my 
mind, before I reach the office. And as much 
done, happily and hopefully, in one hour, as for- 
merly was done, sadly and grudgingly, in three 
hours. The secret of the change from wrong to 
right? I have thought things out. 

Another case of thought and efficiency. A 
friend of mine has trained his intuitions to the 
point of being well-nigh infallible. One day the 
thought was borne in upon him, that he would be 
stricken with appendicitis. Medical examination 
revealed no sign of the trouble — the doctor, and 
a good one, rather poked fun at him. My friend 
said nothing, but proceeded with his thinking. 
He located the finest surgeon available for such 
an operation as he knew must come, did not men- 
tion the matter to the surgeon or to his family, 
but memorized the surgeon's address, put it on 
file in home and office, and went on with his work. 

A year passed. Then the attack came. The 
surgeon was called, he took my friend in a taxicab 
to the hospital — that the sick man had also 
chosen in advance, a successful operation was per- 
formed, and the friend is today in better health 
than he ever was. Now observe: it was found 
that twenty-four hours' delay would have meant 
rupture of the appendix, probably death! My 

[249] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



friend's intuition, and preparation based upon it, 
saved him. 

Do you want health? You must think first. 
Nothing from a bottle will cure you, something 
from your brain must do it. The ever-increasing 
multitude of drug-fiends, dyspeptics, neurasthenics, 
hospital wrecks and suicides, is composed of men 
and women who failed to reason, then act, for 
themselves. 

Do you want a happy home ? You must think 
first. Homes are unhappy because the hearts of 
men and the brains of women are absent. If you 
are a man, you must think for your home as you 
think for your business; if you are a woman, you 
must think for your home as you think for your 
dream. 

Do you want prosperity? You must think first. 
There is a science of finance, which all financiers 
have mastered. Wealth is not a matter of luck 
— it is a matter of yearning, and learning, and 
earning. 

Do you want fame? You must think first. 
And, having thought through and beneath and 
around and above and beyond yourself and the 
Universe a few million times, you may come to 
learn that fame is but the shadow of service, and 
when it appears you will not see it if still you are 
marching on. So many baubles we grasp, for, 

[250] 



THOUGHT, AND EFFICIENCY 



that we would not wish to own if we looked them 
through and through. 

May we cite one more illustration of the power 
of thought? The woman suffrage movement in 
America has gained more in the past five years 
than in the preceding five hundred. This is chiefly 
through a change in mental attitude. The first 
slogan of the suffragette was " Down with men! " 
The modern appeal of the woman voter is " Down 
with wrong — up with men, women and chil- 
dren ! " Reforms advance as they leave hate be- 
hind them. The mule is an example of how a 
kicking animal becomes a balking animal. The 
mule needs vocational training; he has not yet 
found his real life-work, namely that of being an 
object-lesson to reformers. 

How shall we think for efficiency? We must 
first realize what thought does to our brains and 
bodies. 

All the bodily functions — nutrition, respira- 
tion, circulation, concentration and relaxation — 
are controlled by the nerves; and the nerves are 
controlled, or may be controlled, by the brain. 
Many physicians believe that chronic diseases of 
the lungs, heart, brain, digestive organs, are in- 
duced or aggravated by such chronic mental states 
as fear, grief, hate, anger, jealousy. 

A young Brooklyn woman recently died, with 
[251] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



all the symptoms of hydrophobia. She had been 
told the animal that wounded her was mad. Later 
the dog was examined — and no trace of madness 
found. Fear had killed the girl. This was at- 
tested by physicians in good standing. Fear in 
lesser degree is present with us all; whenever we 
yield to it, something in us dies. Depressed, we 
almost cease breathing; elated, we breathe like a 
young north wind. 

Memoirs of the Napoleonic wars affirm that 
soldiers in the height of battle did not feel the 
deadly wounds of shot and shell and saber; only 
as they fell back, and were conscious of defeat, 
did the pangs of bloodshed pierce their minds. 
We can be so bent on victory that scars do not 
matter, wounds are not felt, life itself may pass 
yet our soul be triumphant! 

Many a man, doomed by his doctors, has out- 
lived them all. Many a youth, told by his friends 
that he would fail in some huge, perilous under- 
taking, has enlisted the powers of the gods and 
emerged unscathed after superhuman test, con- 
quering as only he knew he could. We are born 
of a common bit of protoplasm, but reborn of an 
uncommon, giant purpose. Genius is but the 
measureless force of a tenacious idea. No man 
is a genius — every man has a genius. What is 



yours ? 



[252] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



Now brain-cells are like muscles; they can be 
classified and trained. We were taught how to 
feed and dress ourselves, how to walk and talk 
and read and write; but we must teach ourselves 
how to think. Some time a really great educator 
will appear on a college campus, and will revolu- 
tionize college methods. He will aim not to 
cram book-learning down a boy's throat, but to 
locate, correlate and exercise the boy's mental 
and moral muscles in such a way that whatever 
latent power is in the boy may come out, and bene- 
fit the world. For any real teacher, here is a 
world-opening to fame, wealth and service. 

There are forty-odd sections or grooves or mus- 
cles of the mind. The most important of these, 
with a few subdivisions, I have named in the ac- 
companying diagram, which I have called " Effi- 
ciency Mind Builder." You can no more build 
a house without a sufficient number of sound, well- 
shaped bricks or stones than you can build a suc- 
cess without an adequate supply of good mind- 
materials. 

The foundation of our brain-structure is per- 
sonal, the ground floor is fraternal, the upper 
story is social, and the tower is subliminal. Our 
first duty is to think for ourselves; our next is to 
think for our family; our next is to think for our 
workers, friends, neighbors, and the race at large ; 

[253] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



our final, supreme duty is to think for principle, 
truth, unfoldment, God. Every man who fails, 
in health or toil or purse or hope or service or 
reputation, has forgotten to put certain mental 
bricks in his building, or he has used broken, 
cracked or unformed bricks. Indeed, the brains 
of most people are fuller of cracks than of any- 
thing else. 

A restaurant lately opened in our neighbor- 
hood — and failed and closed in six months. 
The food was good, the service prompt, clean, 
deft and courteous. Why did the owner fail? 
Because his scale of prices called for large patron- 
age and small profit on each meal; the neighbor- 
hood was one of homes — not of peripatetic 
eaters; the man could not meet his " overhead," 
so he went to the wall. He lacked the mental 
^trait of causality, which if present would have 
made him figure ahead. 

A $9,000,000 brewing company in Ohio re- 
cently made an assignment for its creditors. The 
explanation of the ruin of the company was that 
the temperance agitation and passage of prohibi- 
tion laws curtailed the volume of liquor sales 
to such an extent that the liquor makers had to 
dissolve their business. At about the same time, 
the concoctor of a soft drink served at soda foun- 
tains bought a huge office building here in New 

[254] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



York, a theatre, and a few other small items — 
with the profits made from his drink! Why did 
the brewer fail, and the soft-drink man succeed? 
The brewer was weak in the mental trait of human 
nature — he did not read the signs of the times 
before the cataclysm came. The vendor of the 
harmless beverage saw that alcohol was doomed 
— and he rose with the rising tide of prohibition 
sentiment. 

The steamship Titanic went down with sixteen 
hundred souls, because the look-out man, failing to 
wield a spy-glass, was deficient in the mental and 
moral sense of responsibility. The $2,000,000 
structure lately burned in New York went up in 
smoke because a youth void of caution dropped a 
lighted match in a dark corner. Every disaster 
has in it somewhere a mental defect. Not the 
cruelty of fate puts us down and out, but the 
cruelty of our own blindness, slothfulness, conceit. 

Which brain-story in your life-house needs 
building up ? Are you all soul ? Strengthen your 
base. Do you worship intellect? Finish your 
tower. Have you sought overmuch the pleasures 
of life ? Spend yourself in creating the social part 
of your edifice. 

The great secret of the efficient man is this: 
he has learned to think sanely, swiftly, clearly, 
intensely, on every crucial point in his daily expe- 
[255] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



rience. When he works, his thought is all in his 
brain ; when he plays, his thought is all in his body ; 
when he loves, his thought is all in his heart; when 
he prays, his thought is all in his soul. 

We can think our way through all obstacles, to 
our utmost desire. And to be a tower of help 
through the ages, we have but to build our minds 
into beauty, symmetry and strength. Every man's 
brain is the map of his own future. Somewhere, 
today, the leaders of tomorrow in scholarship, 
science, business, finance, beneficence, religion, 
are slowly, painfully, silently and bravely forcing 
themselves to occupy, use and command the pow- 
ers of mind undeveloped by their forefathers, 
neighbors and friends. Since the creation of the 
world, scarce a hundred men have done the world's 
real thinking. To aspire, and prepare, to be 
counted with these, is to enroll oneself immortal, 
and teach and bless the race. 



[256] 



THOUGHT AND EFFICIENCY 



EFFICIENCY MIND BUILDER 

LIST OF HUMAN QUALITIES, FACULTIES AND POWERS 



1 


Health (Vitativeness) 


22 


Love of Mate (Conju- 


2 


Nutrition (Alimentive- 




gality) 




ness) 


23. 


Love of Children (Phil- 


3 


Will power (Firmness) 




oprogenitiveness) 


4. 


Sense of Property (Ac- 


24. 


Humor (Mirthfulness) 




quisitiveness, econ- 


25. 


Tact (Adaptability) 




omy) 


26 


Loyalty (Faith) 


5. 


Initiative (Aggressive- 


27. 


Sincerity (Frankness) 




ness) 


28. 


Generosity (Altruism) 


6 


Manual Skill (Con- 


29 


Respect (Veneration) 




structiveness) 


ZO. 


Sympathy (Sensitive- 


7 


Persistence (Continu- 




ness) 




ity) 


31. 


Observation (Human 


8. 


Courage (Self-esteem) 




nature) 


9. 


Caution (Secretiveness) 


32. 


Cordiality (Agreeable- 


10. 


Independence (Origi- 




ness) 




nality) 


33. 


Co-operation (Organi- 


11 


Order (System regular- 




zation) 




ity) 


34. 


Detail (Thoroughness) 


12. 


Memory (Responsibil- 


35. 


Speed (Execution) 




ity) 


36 


Punctuality (Thought- 


13. 


Curiosity (Inventive- 




fulness) 




ness) 


37. 


Practicality (Objective- 


14. 


Mathematics (Causal- 




ness) 




ity) 


38. 


Leadership (Enthusi- 


15. 


Language (Persuasive- 




asm) 




ness) 


39. 


Incentive (Justice, re- 


16. 


Music (Time, tune, 




ward) 




rhythm) 


40. 


Honor (Conscientious- 


17. 


Art (Form, size, weight, 




ness) 




color) 


41. 


Patience (Endurance) 


18. 


Instinct (Love and 


42. 


Calmness (Poise) 




knowledge of Na- 


43. 


Devotion (Aspiration) 




ture) 


44. 


Ideality (Imagination) 


19. 


Intuition (Feeling, psy- 


45. 


Spirituality (Inspira- 




chic power) 




tion, energy) 


20. 


Love of Home (Inhabi- 


46. 


Mysticism (Cosmic con- 




tiveness) 




sciousness) 


21. 


Love of Family (Filial- 


47. 


Reverence (Prayer) 




ty, fraternity) 


48. 


Hope (Optimism) 




DIRECTIONS: Get 


an unabridged. 



dictionary and look up meaning of all 
doubtful words. Have smooth, hard sur- 
face directly under Chart. 

With soft pencil, fill in the mental 
blocks that you believe you have already 
made large and strong enough to guar- 
antee efficiency. Start with the tower and 
work down, so as not to blur the page. 

Leave slight blank margin around label of 
each block. _ Thus, if your mental trait of 
punctuality is but half what i t should be, th e 
block would be filled in thus : ■RMB"—" "l 

If necessary, ask your ^^^W | 

parent, employer, teacher, K^QI I or best friend to help you 

judge yourself. Being hon- * ■ J est, you will find some men- 

tal building-blocks almost entirely blank. The average person would 
probably have a total or equivalent of perhaps 25 out of 48, so do not 
be discouraged if you have only that many. 

Make a list of these total or partial blanks then ask an efficiency 
expert or a practical psychologist how to supply your mental materials 
for success. 

Copyright 191 5 by Edward Earle Purinton 




[257] 



CHAPTER X 
GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 



Explanatory Note. — The following solutions and suggestions 
for personal problems are given here by special arrangement 
with Mr. Purinton. They have been selected from his answers 
to personal correspondence extending over several years, and 
are published in the hope that they will interest and benefit the 
readers of this book. — The Publishers. 

YOU say somewhere that friendship and 
business must not mix. I believe this, 
but what can one do when his heart out- 
strips his power to enforce the law? Supposing 
sympathy becomes a factor too strong to be easily 
overcome, or if overcome, done so with an intense 
struggle bordering on true suffering? Enforce- 
ment of the law of business causes suffering to the 
one it strikes, and sympathy allows business to suf- 
fer instead, when the business already suffers from 
lack of working power or ability of the party in 
question. What is my duty as a business man? 
How can I awaken myself to the needs of business 

[258] 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

and retain my tender feelings, sympathy or love 
for those with whom I am related? " 

Your duty is to your business. This, however, 
does not mean a loss of sympathy or neglect of 
the finer things — it means only a truer vision. 
The successful man is two men, he is a fighter and 
a lover. During office hours he wears a mental 
armor that protects him against the weakening 
shafts of unwise sympathy; when he goes home he 
takes the armor off and is himself again. You 
need an armor; which, in your case, must be 
molded from a conviction. 

Look at it this way. Suppose you discharge 
your employee — incompetent, as you say else- 
where in your letter, but an ideal man and a per- 
sonal friend. He suffers in consequence — but 
why? Because he could not earn the salary he 
was drawing. Which is better, a lifetime of dis- 
honesty or a slight hurt of readjustment? No man 
should enter a business for which he is not fitted, 
one that he does not know or cannot learn. And 
the motive is unworthy that allows him to keep a 
place which he is not filling. If your business suf- 
fers from lack of ability in a member of the con- 
cern, you must do one of two things — make him 
competent, or let him go. By retaining him, un- 
worthily, you are doing an unkindness to yourself, 
to your own family, to the other men in the firm, 

[259] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



and to all outsiders whose business dealings are 
affected indirectly. 

I take it this man is a relative of yours. Then 
so much the more need for strict justice. The 
friendship that grows out of business is all right, 
the business that grows out of friendship is all 
wrong. Birth is an accident — business a des- 
tiny; no two things could be further apart. 

One of the greatest drawbacks to happiness is 
fear of the right thing when doing it will make a 
friend suffer. Is the surgeon cruel when he removes 
a dead portion of the body? All suffering marks 
a death and a resurrection. At the birth of im- 
mortality there is always more or less of the brutal. 
Every man is to his soul what the mother is to her 
child — a knower of anguish, in the beginning. 
When you deny the privilege of suffering to your 
friend, you may be thwarting the birth of his 
soul. 

Please do not follow any suggestion here of- 
fered without considering every argument on the 
other side. Even with exact knowledge of condi- 
tions no man can really advise another. We can 
give general principles, but the choice of action 
must lie between you and Omniscience. There is 
always one right thing to do, and only one. Ask 
yourself. You know — if you stop and listen. 

[260] 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

" Can true harmony and efficiency exist in a na- 
tion where large numbers of foodless workers are 
out of employment (in enforced idleness) through 
lack of opportunity, because no one will hire 
them?" 

This question to be answered properly would 
require a lengthy treatise on our system of govern- 
ment. Two things however are certain. First, 
that the cause of enforced idleness is not lack of 
employment on the part of the rich, but lack of 
equipment on the part of the poor — it is the con- 
sensus of opinion among the leaders of commerce 
that the really difficult problem of business is to 
find high-grade men for high-grade positions. 
Most of us need friction, privation, disappoint- 
ment, to compel us to learn self-mastery. Almost 
invariably, the man out of work has lost his posi- 
tion through laziness, carelessness, impatience, or 
incompetence. And these faults will not be rem- 
edied by casting the blame on the mass of employ- 
ers. Second, perfect harmony in a nation will 
always be impossible. The greater the nation, 
the more types of human beings compose it. This 
means that in proportion as a country expands it 
will hold as criteria of happiness a multiplicity of 
ideals increasingly diverse. 

That is, harmony depends more and more on 
[261] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



the individual, as the institution grows. We be- 
lieve in reaching the State through the individual. 
Therefore we have neither any quarrel with social 
propaganda nor any part in them. 

" Should children ever be controlled by force? " 
Only ignorance of a child's nature impels force, 
and even that does not excuse it. If the parents 
and teachers who resort to corporal punishment 
would analyze themselves more closely they would 
discover that their own weakness, mental, psychic 
or emotional, is always back of the rod. In short, 
the use of brute strength in the management of 
children proves the last degree of incompetence 
on the part of those who inflict the punishment. 
There is no more effective way to lose a child's 
respect than to lay hands on it. Moreover, re- 
cent experiments in psychopathology have shown 
that even the child of criminal tendencies may be 
wholly reclaimed by establishing a physiological 
harmony in brain and body and by suggesting only 
the good to the child's mind. A child is like a 
sensitive plate; even before birth, the impressions 
of surroundings, including the feeling, thought, 
and action of the parents, are being recorded day 
by day. Children are literally made by what they 
see and hear. The only true parental authority is 
that of example — the parents who bluster and 
threaten accomplish nothing but confession. 

[262] 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

" Is it a mistake to try to develop your psychic 
powers; if so, why so? Is it not about the same 
as trying to find out anything else which seems be- 
yond the normal, such as flying, electricity, and so 
forth?" 

No, it is not about the same. If a helpless in- 
fant who had not learned to walk were to be lifted 
bodily, placed in a flying-machine, and set adrift on 
the ocean of space, we should all recognize the 
absurdity and criminality of the thing. Yet this is 
what occurs time after time in the metaphysical 
ranks. Psychic investigation is distinctly valuable 
as a proof of race unfoldment; until recently, the 
minds of men have been closed to the phenomena 
of the unseen world, and any recognition of the 
intangible things avails to quicken the perceptions. 
But the natural and the human must precede the 
celestial. Those who yield their personality to 
the control of psychic forces generally run the risk 
of losing their physical, intellectual, and moral 
health. An indication of the unnaturalness of 
psychic absorption may be witnessed in the seance. 
The mediums declare that their " control " is 
usually the spirit of a child, an Indian, or some 
other low-grade intelligence. If the Divine Wis- 
dom intended communication with the departed 
spirits by this means, would not the great, gen- 
erous, noble, and illumined spirits be the first to 
[263] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



get in touch with the medium ? We must use the 
powers that we have, or lose them. Did you ever 
know an extreme occultist who was perfectly 
healthy, normal, sane, and a source of joy in 
everyday companionship? In the case of elec- 
tricity, we make use of our bodies and our minds 
together with our desire for knowledge. But in 
the case of hypnotism, clairvoyance, psychometry, 
and other phases of the supernormal, we must 
relinquish our human attributes in order to ad- 
vance. This does not appear sane. 

" Do you offer this movement in lieu of a re- 
ligion ?■" 

Emphatically no. Efficiency stands in lieu of 
nothing, but in fulfilment of everything. If a man 
has lost his faith in God, himself, and the world, 
we hope to help him find it again; or if he has the 
old-fashioned religious belief we want to show 
him how to live it through and through. But 
there never can be a movement wise enough, 
strong enough, good enough, to take the place of 
religion in any human life. 

Our purpose is fulfilment. Too often religion 
has been uplifting but impractical, science has been 
accurate but cold, education has been informative 
but inactive, work has been profitable but joyless. 
Our desire is to blend the finer aspects of religion, 
science, education, and work, so that every life 

[264] 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

may become all-round, sympathetic, and powerful 
in each expression of itself. 

" I believe that one should not die ; if so why 
is there such a feeling about it? " 

Many believe as you do. Within the past ten 
years a new school of thinkers has developed, their 
slogan being Physical Immortality, and their aim 
" How to live forever." These friends, some of 
them personally known to the writer, maintain that 
death could be, should be, will be conquered — 
and more than one has lost his life in the effort. 
The sanest of them are quite scientific, there is no 
physiological necessity for dying. I think, how- 
ever, there is a moral necessity — and will be so 
long as present civilization endures. 

The purpose of death is to cleanse the soul. To 
realize this, look deep into the eyes of a little child 
— then into the eyes of an old man ; observe the 
clouds and masks and unrealities that have settled 
with human experience, layer on layer, over the 
beautiful child-sweetness that the man once pos- 
sessed. We die for the sake of being natural 
again. If we could retain the spiritual fervor and 
divine impress that marks our beginning of life, 
there would be no call for death to renew us. 

The fear of death, as all fear, is based on ig- 
norance and infidelity. Only they fear death who 

[265] 



EFFICIENT LIVING 



abuse or evade life. Men die averaging less than 
forty years of age — they should all reach not less 
than a hundred and twenty. By wrong living, 
wrong thinking, wrong working, talking, feeling, 
and loving, the human race destroys two-thirds of 
its own life. This unconscious suicide virtually 
tinges our whole view of death. Any good thing 
turns bad when kept out of proportion. We, the 
human family, experience death just three times as 
often as we should. Hence it looks abnormal, 
which it is. 

Normal death is painless — a mere falling to 
sleep. Yet because illness hurts, often terribly, 
we imagine death hurts more. Our doctors and 
ministers should both have told us differently. 

Normal death is opportune, it comes when our 
work is finished and we are so tired we care for 
nothing but rest. If the friends of the dead 
mourn, it is because the dead were incomplete. 
Why blame death for that? 

Normal death is radiant with promise, there is 
nothing so illumined on earth as the vision that 
belongs to the dying. We, never having died, 
cannot understand this. We bury ourselves in 
gloom, wear crepe veils and mourning bands, look 
on joy as a desecration, bar the future good with 
tearful reminiscence. If, instead of accepting the 
world's false opinion of death, we would learn for 

[266] 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

ourselves the real nature of it, we should recognize 
both spiritual and physical gain from the normal 
dissolution of the body. 

Human blindness, custom, weakness, supersti- 
tion, transgression — this accounts for the dread 
of the final change. Nature is guiltless. Nature 
always helps, where man allows her to. 

" Is it possible to fight Caesar with God, or must 
we fight Caesar with Caesar and God with God? " 

Let us suppose a case. Suppose you are a 
woman of intense loyalty and a great impulsive 
love-nature; you put your absolute faith in some 
one for whom you care deeply — only to find him 
subtle, shrewd, deceptive, mercenary, willing to 
drain your heart's blood, turn all your sacrifices 
into gain for himself, and not so much as thank 
you for your life-surrender. Shall you become 
deceptive and mercenary? No, but you shall be- 
come subtle and shrewd! Every pronounced 
mother-type, whether man or woman; every one 
bent on giving; every sympathetic, warm-hearted, 
unselfish nature, must adopt the first law of earth- 
life, namely, self-preservation. Men, as a rule, 
have learned this lesson only too well ; women are 
just beginning to recognize the need of it. The 
brain of man despises the heart of woman, because 
the heart of woman cannot or will not exercise 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



brutality. And the brain, overwhelmingly brutal, 
stops for nothing but its master in its own field. 

There are two invincible weapons for a loving 
woman to use against a ruthless man; coldness and 
shrewdness. Take your choice. Be utterly in- 
different — or be ever alert. Warfare is not 
ideal. It is rudimentary. But the masculine way 
of regarding women is primitive in the extreme. 
And you may have to lapse momentarily into the 
Stone Age, if you are to meet a man squarely on 
his own ground. 

Remember this : all permanent vantage is based 
on merit. Your ugliest adversary owns a strength 
of character that you do not possess — therefore 
God brings him as a worthy example to you. 
Rival his might, outmatch him in skill, make him 
respect your sheer force of arms — then you will 
not only save yourself, you will redeem him. 

" I find it hard to reconcile efficiency methods 
with Bible teachings. The gentle Master taught 
meekness and no thought of oneself. To become 
efficient, must we not become strenuous, and rather 
egotistical? " 

The gentle Nazarene taught meekness — but 
He lived battle. He had to, for the world could 
not understand meekness; the world considered 
meekness a sign of hopeless defeat. When the 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

right everywhere prevails, the message of the Man 
of Galilee may serve as a code of law. But until 
that time, we shall be forced to gain our spiritual 
advance by the most ardent struggles. 

There are two kinds of genuine meekness: the 
meekness of childhood, which is submission to au- 
thority; and the meekness of old age, which is the 
calm of meditation. Two thousand years ago the 
civilized world was a babe, and the folk of Pales- 
tine could well practise the simple, natural, child- 
like form of meekness. Also in India meekness, 
today, is a national trait — for India has grown 
very old, and the zest of maturity is vanished. 
But we of America are just reaching our strong 
prime ; and to live and dp our work we must know 
how to battle. Infinitely humble toward the vast 
realm of truth whose outer portals we have but 
opened a little way; modest toward our achieve- 
ments, which are nothing beside what we might 
have done; tender with the helpless, patient with 
the erring, glad to yield our very lives in blessing 
and serving those we love — all this we can be and 
more, if then we stand as firm as Gibraltar, keep- 
ing our granite wall of defense armed for the 
passing hosts of insincerity. 

" Cannot your philosophy greatly benefit my 
wife and myself who have suffered by death the 

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loss of our only child, a bright boy, who would 
have graduated from the High School this year? 
He seemed our whole comfort and our source of 
ambition and joy." 

When the butterfly has grown from the worm, 
and is released because now it has wings, do we 
mourn? Why then mourn for the passing of the 
human soul from its earth-limitations? The 
change is the same. And if our experience were 
larger, our perceptions finer, we should know this 
and rejoice. 

There is loss in death only because we do not 
see the gain. Experience, like energy, cannot be 
lost. We may not sense the transformation of 
light into heat, or of heat into motion ; but the lack 
of discernment cannot affect the laws of chemistry. 
So with human experience, which is the energy of 
the soul in the form of action; death transforms 
experience into light — so that each earth-lesson 
is radiant with meaning though it may have been 
obscured while the soul was confined to an earth- 
body. 

Thus, if your boy was taken while very young, 
he will simply be learning, growing, developing, 
attaining, in a higher sphere. It is the belief of 
many that all human life has a celestial counter- 
part; that the work unfinished here will be sooner 

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perfected there; that specific training here will be 
used there — every soul continuing the true ex- 
pression of itself as teacher, artist, physician, mu- 
sician, captain of industry or humble toiler; that 
no real separation of soul-kin is possible and the 
momentary parting looks to everlasting good. I 
think the great difference between earth and 
Heaven is that in Heaven we shall work with finer 
tools. If your boy was spiritually matured be- 
fore his age and could wield better instruments 
than earth affords, can you not be glad for his 
sake? 

Have you ever thought of adopting a child? 
Or of doing for other children what you would 
have done for your child? Don't let your paren- 
tal affections wither — let them unfold, and it is 
quite possible that the boy in his new home may be 
helped by your tenderness and watch-care exer- 
cised for another. Selfishness will raise a wall be- 
tween you and the dead — open-heartedness will 
form a direct path of communication. Be kind to 
some one else's boy, if you would keep close to 
your boy. 

After all, what of the living? Perhaps you 

and your wife needed a great sorrow to melt your 

hearts together. If your love for each other is 

perfect, even the sharing of a woe is divine — the 

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sharing itself is enough. Lavish on each other 
the faith, hope, idealism, self-sacrifice, devotion, 
that you would have felt toward your boy; then 
you may see why he was taken. 

" Do you attach any scientific value to so-called 
' Absent Treatment ' ? What are the possibilities, 
and the limitations, of pure thought-force? " 

" Absent Treatment," being imaginary, is good 
for imaginary ills. Even old-school physicians 
must recognize this, on the principle that " like 
cures like." By imaginary we do not mean ficti- 
tious — the imagination is the builder of human 
destiny. If you imagine any form of treatment is 
curing you, it does cure you by letting your im- 
agination play on yourself. Disease is Nature be- 
ing hindered; cure is Nature being helped. 

" Absent Treatment," as generally understood 
and given, is merely the projection of positive, in- 
spiring, cheering, health-producing thought from a 
healer, psychologist, or so-called divine scientist to 
the patient or student in need of uplift. A defi- 
nite time and place is usually agreed upon in ad- 
vance, with certain conditions of solitude, silence 
and receptivity carefully observed by the patient. 
Believers in this form of mental therapeutics claim 
that distance cannot lessen the potency of the 
quickening vibrations thus set in motion. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

Such a theory should not be ridiculed — but 
such a practise should be safeguarded. 

Benefits accruing from this method are perhaps 
four-fold. In the first place, autosuggestion does 
most of the healing in the case of absent treat- 
ments — the mind of the patient animates himself 
while he thinks the mind of the doctor rescues him. 
Salutary, if not altogether honest. Then, the 
period of enforced rest and quiet allows Nature 
to work freely and restore equilibrium. More- 
over, the feeling that a trusted friend is now send- 
ing wireless thought-messages of love and hope 
and strength, comforts and soothes. And finally, 
there may be some power attached to the vibration 
itself — though the absent healers whom the 
writer has had the pleasure of knowing could not 
by any stretch of generosity be accused of owning 
minds that resembled storage-batteries. A mind 
thoroughly sharpened isn't satisfied to hang on a 
long-distance telephone ; it is a keen tool, and as a 
tool must be used on things near-at-hand. 

Beware, however, of the metaphysician who as- 
sumes to " treat " you from a distance, without 
possessing true, scientific knowledge of anatomy, 
physiology and pathology, and without requiring a 
personal diagnosis of your condition. Such a 
healer is guilty of malpractice, and deserves no 
pity when he goes to jail. 

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" How shall disobedience in a child be corrected 
or prevented? " 

By modifying the command, so that it accords 
with the child's sense of justice, attitude of faith, 
and peculiarities of temperament. The child who 
disobeys proves one of two things; either that the 
command itself was wrong, or that the method of 
giving it was thoughtless, premature, inverted or 
some other way out of plumb. Either of these 
conditions is a reproof not to the child but to the 
teacher, parent or guardian who exacts obedience. 

Was the command reasonable? How many 
parents stop to think why they tell their children 
to do, or not to do, certain things? " Don't get 
your feet wet — don't play in the dirt — don't run 
with Johnny Smith (his folks ain't nice) — don't 
neglect your studies — don't refuse your medicine 
— don't ask where you came from — don't cry 
when you're punished — don't deny a kiss to your 
homely Aunt Hepsibah " — with this daily gamut 
of rule-by-injunction to face manfully, how is a 
child going to have enough strength left to do as 
he is told? Every one of these senseless, fatal 
Don'ts is based on a fallacy, which the child is 
quick to recognize. Much " parental authority " 
is barefaced rule of might, which nothing condones 
save ignorance of the nature of a child. A man 
should not beat his child any more than he should 



GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

beat his wife; in either case he is mentally weak 
and morally decrepit. 

Was the command desirable? There are no 
commands in Nature but those of the inner voices. 
And if a child rebels at a certain mandate, we may 
safely doubt its character. It is right for every 
child to go to school; it is not right for every child 
to study every subject, or be under every teacher. 
Put a born soldier in a theological seminary and 
if he doesn't raise the dickens, you'd better consult 
the doctor. Make a born poet study Trigonome- 
try and if he isn't forced to carry all his figures on 
his cuffs, it is because he has more principles than 
most poets are cumbered with. This world is a 
world of misfits ; chiefly because parents try to run 
all children through a common mold. Of all cre- 
ated things, human babies need the most under- 
standing and are given the least. 

Was the command intelligible ? Did you make 
it plain? Children cannot think in terms of the 
abstract — rules for them to be enforced, must be 
illustrated. I have known cases where mere ba- 
bies were punished cruelly for transgressing an 
order innocently, ignorantly, not having realized 
the true import of the words in which it was 
couched. Children forget easily; absorbed in 
work or play, they feel only the life of the mo- 
ment. Then, too, they are weak, physically, men- 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



tally, morally — how many grown people can fol- 
low their own resolution to the letter, with a mind 
infallible and a will indomitable? Much less can 
a toddling infant execute orders with a flawless 
precision. There is often in cases of " perverse- 
ness " a spirit of justifiable independence; most 
parental discipline is quotation from a copybook, 
and government by-rule-of -thumb does not appeal 
to a child. 

The command both wise and loving is seldom 
disobeyed through malice. Therefore the first 
remedial step is to examine and reconstruct the pa- 
rental mind. 

" What shall be done to check the iconoclastic 
tendency of modern times? " 

Nothing. Iconoclasm is the herald of individ- 
ualism. Revolt comes that reality may follow. 
Every great life was built on the ruins of all that 
was not itself. The destroyer of custom is reck- 
lessness — the destroyer of character is supine- 
ness. You may recline upon the standards of so- 
ciety; but when you start to advance you will feel 
them topple — they are too flimsy to carry the 
added weight of the idea which forces you to 
move. 

This is the age of iconoclasm. And the more 
the better. For the preceding ages of darkness, 
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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

fear, superstition, were countless and interminable. 
People today investigate things for themselves. 
They take the word of no man, not even that of a 
doctor, a scientist, or a minister of the gospel. 
They are lacking in veneration — but in the past 
they blindly worshiped a fetish, a dogma, a fiat, or 
a totem-pole. Let the bold smashing of artificial 
standards go merrily on ; for in the end, truth will 
be the gainer. 

Once upon a time an iconoclast declared " The 
world is not flat ! " People said he was crazy. 
So he left them creeping harmlessly about in their 
mental crib, while he came and discovered Amer- 
ica. 

Another iconoclast, the greatest President that 
America has known, decided " Slavery must not 
be ! " The nation went to war about it — the na- 
tion was afraid of iconoclasm. But the one man 
triumphed, and his name is revered above that of 
all other statesmen who ever lived. 

The iconoclasts have always been the intellec- 
tual and moral pioneers. Browning, Goethe, Shel- 
ley, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Hugo, Ibsen, Emerson, 
iconoclasts royal every one, changed the trend of 
human minds toward broader, higher planes. And 
they were fiendishly misunderstood while they were 
doing it. It is safe to ridicule no man, excepting 
the man who fears ridicule. 
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We should thank most him who disagrees with 
us. For, if we let him, he will show us our weak- 
ness, whatever it may be. The custom, the na- 
tion, the person, the creed, that stirs antagonism, 
contains a false element that must be removed. 
Rise above error and forget it, if you can; but if 
not — kill it ! 

" Should divorce be abolished? " 

Nothing should be abolished. Abolition means 
force; whereas gentleness, not force, is the ulti- 
mate power in human life. 

Divorce should be limited. It should be granted 
to none but those who prove that they have done 
their best — their physical, mental, and spiritual 
best — to remedy the faults, each in himself or 
herself, that occasion disagreement. Not equity, 
but ideality, is the true ground for divorce. So 
long as each blames the other and essays to worst 
the other, they should be allowed to suffer torment 
until they come to their senses. 

Divorce conceded for alleged wrongs only per- 
petuates them. In marriage or out of marriage, 
no one can wrong us but ourselves. To remove 
the effects of our own weakness, folly, ignorance or 
insufficiency while still the cause remains is to in- 
terrupt the process of Nature and thwart the plan 
of God. So long as a husband or wife accuses the 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

other self-blindness persists. And for that, di- 
vorce is not a cure. Trial separation is much bet- 
ter — and it often prevents the final sundering of 
marriage bonds grown irksome. A little time and 
opportunity for meditation usually clarifies any dif- 
ficulty arising from human relationship. 

If marriage is performed by a minister, divorce 
should also be sanctioned by him. Else there is 
no logic in the situation. When clergymen realize 
that sometimes divorce is necessary and right; 
when judges perceive that generally divorce is 
needless and wrong, and when people want the 
truth about themselves — then we shall begin to 
have a sane and wholesome method of applying 
divorce. 

A premonition of this glad day has been felt in 
the Lower East Side of New York, where a wise 
magistrate with a heart and soul in him lately es- 
tablished a real divorce tribunal, whose object is 
to re-unite the foolish married infants that get pro- 
voked at each other, and only as a last resort to 
give them a writ of freedom. People have nick- 
named this tribunal " Cupid's Court," for here 
the little pink god so often finds again the hearts 
he had lost through the friction and strain of the 
years in a common household. Every judge in a 
divorce case should have qualified to be king of 
" Cupid's Court." 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



" Are parents responsible for the noble or evil 
careers of their children? " 

So far as children are concerned, two things are 
required of parents: That they love each other 
with all the fervor, devotion and unselfishness of 
which they are capable, and that they employ all 
the known methods of science and religion for the 
bearing, rearing and training of children. Par- 
ents are responsible for their children only insofar 
as they themselves have obeyed, or refused, the 
guidance of love in their own life. Parenthood 
is the static period of divine impress; wherever 
children fail to reach their highest, some lowered 
parental ideal was at least a contributing cause. 

Our highest is better than our most. Hence the 
father and mother of pure thought and lofty pur- 
pose bequeath to us a finer heritage than those of 
mere manual skill or psychic training. But a sym- 
metry of parenthood is possible only to those who 
have made thorough study of sex-conservation, pre- 
natal influence, physical, mental and spiritual aids 
to motherhood, privileges and responsibilities of 
fatherhood, psychology and hygiene of babyhood, 
principles and methods of Froebel, Horace Mann, 
and other true educators ; — in short, all that per- 
tains to the growth of a child, from the hour of 
conception to the hour of leaving home as a fully 
developed man or woman. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

If all those who marry could be weighted with 
a sense of their responsibility to the unborn; and 
if all those whose children are grown could be 
relieved of the sense of ownership and interference 
which is generally nothing more than a belated 
sense of responsibility; — then homes would be 
happier because home makers would be more free 
and more fit, both. Lack of freedom is always 
lack of fitness. And the ideal home is that in 
which every member holds himself responsible for 
himself — but for no other. Blame arises from a 
shortage of backbone. Every man's career is self- 
carved; and the nearer we hew to our own line of 
vision, the readier we are to shoulder all the re- 
sponsibility in sight. 

Are you a parent? Take responsibility for 
your children. Are you a child? Take responsi- 
bility for yourself. For, strange to say, the one 
who takes the most feels it least! 

" A young friend of mine who has a great de- 
sire for traveling has already traveled over four 
continents during the past eight years; although 
having a good position, he yet feels unhappy, rest- 
less and discontented. What is the cause, and the 
means of relief? " 

Travel is a diversion — not a life work. The 
very habit of being constantly on the go tends to 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



produce a feeling of restlessness. Moreover, the 
lack of a permanent home and place of business, 
which the professional traveler is forced to un- 
dergo, does not fit in with our present stage of 
development. When we were nomads, we were 
rudiments. 

What your friend needs is to travel not over the 
world but into himself. It is a matter of common 
observation that those who have a mania for travel 
do not know the meaning of self-resource. The 
real mission of travel is to develop those percep- 
tions and faculties which otherwise would remain 
dormant. Self-analysis and self-improvement, 
wisely conducted, will take the place of travel. 

It is utterly impossible to tell the cause of any- 
thing without knowing all the conditions. The 
unhappiness of your friend might be traced to one 
of a hundred causes in the physical, mental, emo- 
tional or spiritual realms — entirely apart from 
the element of travel. We would suggest a per- 
sonal consultation with an experienced, broad, sym- 
pathetic psychologist. 

" Is the nervous system the channel of operation 
between the mortal and the immortal? " 

Many students of Occultism hold that the spinal 
cord is the connecting link between soul and body. 
Therefore the nervous system would trace the 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

ramifying of the indestructible ego throughout the 
body of flesh and blood. Materialistic scientists 
are unable to controvert this opinion, since they 
themselves are ignorant of the composition of 
nerve substance, and in doubt as to the origin of 
nerve action. 

Disorders of the emotional, affectional or 
psychic natures bear directly on the nerves. As 
the emotions, the affections and the intuitions per- 
tain to the spiritual life, this would indicate a very 
close connection between the soul and the nervous 
organism. It is also noteworthy that in the case 
of invalids who are constantly doing something 
they know they should not, the nerves become more 
and more unstrung as the violation of conscience 
increases. 

Nearly every case of weak or tense or shaky 
nerves may be resolved to a chronic state of ne- 
gation, where the sufferer is failing to voice, regu- 
larly and positively, the highest mandates of the 
soul. 

11 Do ideal womanhood and manhood exist in 
real life?" 

Every human being is the realization, or the ap- 
proximation, of an ideal. If we could subpoena 
History as a witness, we should find that the most 
crude, uninteresting, woe-begone specimen of hu- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



manity is really far in advance of what he was a 
few centuries ago. If we could perceive clearly, 
we should apprehend that all the world is in the 
state of becoming ideal. This would revoke our 
pessimism, and nullify our habit of hasty judg- 
ment. 

The endless diversity of human ideals must be 
recognized before we can judge another life fairly. 
There are no more leaves in a forest than there are 
tints and forms and varieties of human aspirations. 
It would be as foolish, undesirable and impossible, 
for any other individual to express our ideal as it 
would be for an oak leaf to imitate the pine, or a 
lily to envy the rose. 

If you are looking for an ideal man or woman, 
you will probably be disappointed. The ideal in 
your own mind must be expressed in your own 
heart and life, in order to satisfy you. But if you 
can look on every man and woman as embodying, 
more or less perfectly, his or her particular ideal, 
you will find a joy in human companionship that 
perhaps you have not felt before. 

" Please advise me if one can possibly be too 
optimistic. It is to my mind apparent that much 
of the so-called ' New Thought ' is fake — and 
extremely illogical." 

Much of any kind of new thought is overenthusi- 
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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

asm. Helen Wilmans, the organizer of Mental 
Science in this country, actually believed that she 
could by the force of her brain grow new limbs 
on people, execute surgical operations, and restore 
gray hair to its youthful color. Such a claim is 
illogical, but not so wild as it looks. I understand 
that Elmer Gates, in his laboratory at Chevy 
Chase, Washington, has really created body-cells 
by artificial stimulation of nerves, brain and blood. 
We have no right to call anything " fake " — most 
of the world's greatest problems have been finally 
solved by an impractical dreamer generally con- 
sidered a fanatic, a charlatan, or a tool of sor- 
cerers. 

There is, however, such a thing as being an un- 
mitigated optimist — blind, rash, flippant, weak 
and selfish, unable to cope with the stern grind of 
things and feebly taking refuge in a good-luck 
formula. Optimism without common sense is a 
balloon without ballast — only its descent is 
quicker than its ascent. Optimism without fore- 
thought is an engine off the track and still run- 
ning; optimism without sympathy is a boat with 
one oar; optimism without any needful human trait 
is a dangerous instrument of progress. We for- 
get how slowly Nature works — it may be years 
before today's thought assumes visible shape. 
But if we picture happiness clearly enough, and 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



frame it with strong, coherent action, our lives 
will gradually change of themselves till the colors 
all blend with our dream and desire. Optimism is 
not talking, or even smiling — but knowing, doing, 
waiting. 

" Is there not a limit to self-sacrifice? What 
of a sacrifice by an unmarried woman for less for- 
tunate relatives who do not appear to appreciate 
it, and who have homes and children of their 
own? " 

This kind of foolish immolation is pathetic, be- 
cause so frequent and so hopeless. Thousands of 
daughters who wish to be dutiful, or of maiden 
aunts so-called who idolize unselfishness, are liter- 
ally committing slow suicide in following the whims 
of autocratic old parents or in playing nurse to 
barbarous young nephews and spoiled young 
nieces. Self-sacrifice is justified only when a high 
degree of spiritual kinship is felt between those 
concerned, so that a community of idealism acts 
as safeguard in preventing thoughtless acceptance 
or needless gift of sacrifice. Few people in the 
same family are spiritually related; hence few 
cases of filial or fraternal sacrifice are anything 
but specious. 

A fair gauge of self-surrender may be found in 
this question. Is the altar of devotion greater 

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than the devotee ? If so, let him yield himself up ; 
if not, let him beware. Martyrs who have died 
for a splendid cause or glorious principle have 
gained more than they lost. But martyrs who 
have died for the sake of domestic minutiae have 
throttled their own spiritual growth. 

Does your sacrifice of self bind you, repress 
you, hurt you, madden you ? Then stop it — what 
you need is self-respect. Does your sacrifice ex- 
pand you, refine you, comfort you, exalt you? 
Then give your last drop of blood to make it per- 
fect. 

" How can a widow be happy who has no one 
to care whether she is dead or alive; and whose 
only relative, a brother, drinks to excess, remains 
out all night, and when sober is utterly indifferent? 
I get blue and despondent, I have become sour- 
tempered and at times almost insane : is there any 
hope for me? My heart leads at all times." 

You are unhappy not because you are lonely 
and not because your brother drinks, but because 
your heart leads at all times. Get some work and 
let your brain lead part of the time ; get some light 
and let your soul lead part of the time ; get some 
exercise and let your body lead part of the time; 
take yourself out of your emotions and your trou- 
bles will seem infinitesimal, which they are. 

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The world is full of people who care whether 
you are dead or alive — you haven't found them, 
that is all. There are plenty of people who would 
love to know you. 

You haven't enough to do to keep your mind 
out of mischief. Look around you for people 
whose lives you can brighten; you will soon re- 
alize that others carry woes even greater than 
yours, and that you have been neglecting many 
sources of happiness. Cease trying to be happy 
— try just to be useful. And if happiness doesn't 
catch you unawares, it will be the first time that 
anybody trod the path of loving service without 
meeting her. 

" Is contentment always advisable?" 
Contentment always — satisfaction never. The 
discontented man rebels at his surroundings, con- 
ditions, limitations, or other external features of 
life. That is foolish, if not wrong. The unsat- 
isfied man rebels at his own imperfections, and 
strives with himself to relieve outer hardship by 
developing inner strength. That is divine, and 
nothing else avails in the end to guarantee im- 
provement. 

Much of what passes for contentment is a 
veneered form of lethargy, blindness, or cow- 
ardice. As between the slow, heavy, unruffled 

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man who seems contented because obtuse, and the 
nervous, impatient, fiery man who is always get- 
ting into trouble, choose the one who feels, acts, 
errs and suffers. Ashes are contented — light- 
ning bolts are not. 

Yet underneath physical activity, mental ambi- 
tion, perhaps emotional disturbance, we can and 
should retain a sense of utter calm, arising from 
our faith in the ultimate goodness of things, and 
assuring to us equilibrium in the midst of a world 
of panic. Not even the depths of the sea can be 
as quiet, as changeless, as cool and clear, as the 
soul abiding in its own full consciousness. 

" How is a woman going to be happy when her 
husband drinks? If there's any way to happiness 
for her, please let me know." 

The faults of others cannot make us unhappy 
except as they reveal deficiency in ourselves. You 
are miserable not because your husband drinks, 
but because you haven't learned the way to love 
him out of it. Any form of weakness marks the 
absence of love. And the man who goes wrong 
needs, most, the unyielding faith of some one who 
loves him enough to behold him perfect. 

Alcoholism is a disease of the will, the nerves, 
the stomach, and the emotions. The victim of 
intemperance must be treated as an invalid — not 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



as a criminal, demon, or outcast. Work with him 

— not for him, against him, or in spite of him. 
Make his battle your battle; let him feel your sym- 
pathy, confidence and strength in every moment of 
struggle; give him the joy of knowing that some 
one understands — and you are on the way to hap- 
piness for you both. 

The first element in temperance reform is die- 
tetic. If home cooking were as palatable, hy- 
gienic and attractive as it should be, no man could 
bear the taste of liquor. Foods that are soggy, 
greasy, pasty, rich, ill-prepared, with excess of 
meat, condiments, and white-flour products, liter- 
ally drive a man to the saloon by force of artificial 
irritation. A well-balanced menu of simple things 

— fruits, nuts, vegetables, cereals, salads, and 
light desserts — has been known of itself to cure 
the liquor-appetite. 

The second factor is rejuvenation of the nerves. 
This requires distinct mental, moral and spiritual 
help. Ordinarily, specific treatment is required, 
such as may be had at any of the several institutes 
for the relief of alcoholism. 

The next move is to reform the home. Men 
seek the saloon because it meets a vital want. 
There they can relax, forget their worries, find 
sympathy, generosity, goodfellowship, and permis- 
sion to be themselves. Let the home fill every 

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need of a man's nature, and the " night with the 
boys " will be forgotten. Share your husband's 
pleasures and he will share your woes. 

Lastly; praise him for what he is, appeal to the 
manhood in him, stir his pride to show himself a 
hero in her eyes. Let him once taste the joy of 
battling for an ideal — your ideal — and this 
should be elixir enough. Men emerge gods be- 
neath the transfiguring touch of a wise and loving 
woman. And the faults of a man, great as they 
are, become sources of power when the woman of 
his heart lays her hand on the weakness, bidding it 
reverse. 

" How can I gain concentration of thought? " 
" How can I apply it so as to drive out fear? " 
You will gain concentration of thought by estab- 
lishing fixity of purpose. The remedy for a scat- 
tering mind is a vow, so earnest, so real, so all- 
compelling, that nothing can break it or weaken 
its hold. The writer was once a victim of " con- 
fused ideas " to a degree bordering on hysteria. 
He cured himself by discerning just what he most 
wanted to do, then at the beginning of each day 
saying " I Will " enough times to make sure he 
would. If necessary, clench your fists and pound 
the table with each declaration of purpose. Shout 
it if you have to. Be so positive that the unused 
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remnants of ideas lodged in your brain will be 
swept clean out like drift before a deluge. Look 
in the faces of the world's big men and you will see 
that the masters of concentration have all been 
masters of purpose. Get one idea of your own, 
then act it out, repeat as often as needed, and you 
will find the incoherence is gone. 

There are more tangible ways of accomplish- 
ment. Certain games will aid concentration; 
notably chess, diabolo, tennis, polo, and cycling. 
Learn to play one of these until you can surely win. 
The feeling of mastery, of itself, renders a man 
alert. And the divided mind is always sluggish. 

Another method is linguistic. A knowledge of 
Latin, Greek, or some other synthetic language, 
requires attention to the slightest change in form 
of word or position. Intense watchfulness results, 
before which all jumbled ideas vanish. Another 
good practise : shut yourself in a room with a pa- 
per and pencil, take an unsettled theme, such as 
Telepathy, Free Will, Immortality, and write 
all the possible arguments on both sides of the 
question before leaving the room. Join a de- 
bating society for like benefit. Perhaps the best 
way is to infuse a different motive into the 
regular work of the hour. Whatever you are 
doing — from washing dishes to managing a 
corporation — begin practising this: " How 

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quickly and how well can I do it? " Speed alone, 
or thoroughness alone, might fail to produce con- 
centration; together, they can't fail. To work 
rapidly demands a focus of the subjective mind; 
between these foci the entire mind is absorbed. 

No man living can tell you how to " drive out 
fear." 

Fear cannot be driven out, fear must be loved 
out. Fear is darkness, and the remedy is light. 
The majority of human souls are born spiritually 
blind. And our struggle through the ages has 
been to free ourselves from the dread of the shad- 
ows lurking in our own heavy eyes. 

Fear is one of three things: ignorance, auto- 
intoxication, or inertia. And the cure is three- 
fold: knowledge, purity, activity. 

The two main objects of apprehension are peo- 
ple and future events. But to know people is to 
love them, and to know ourselves is to command 
fate. " Editha's Burglar," which I trust every 
child among you has read and enjoyed, contains a 
very pretty sentiment — and a very great truth. 
No man can " burgle " while a little child watches 
him in perfect faith. If you fear burglary, com- 
mence to love the burglar (and put a good stout 
lock on your door). Lion-tamers declare that 
what keeps the animal in subjection is the man's 
consciousness of power. The beast has more 
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strength — but the man knows his. Know the 
heart and you trust your neighbor; know the mind 
and you trust yourself; know the soul and you trust 
your Creator; know, and you trust. Faith is not 
blind, Faith is all-seeing. 

The second element in anxiety is physiological, 
what the doctors call " auto-intoxication." Most 
people are food-poisoned, and consequently stupid. 
I think it may be held a ground-principle that the 
man with a chronic fear is a victim of self-indul- 
gence at the table. Even the purest food when 
taken an ounce in excess of the actual needs of the 
body, turns to poison within twenty-four hours. 
This toxic matter passes through the abdominal 
walls into the blood, thence to the brain, thence 
into all forms of perverted thought. Most of our 
anxiety is the ghost of what we ate for dinner yes- 
terday. Wholesome food, individually chosen, 
naturally prepared, and rationally consumed, is 
the beginning of clear thought as well as of clean 
life. This would take a volume to elaborate ; the 
suggestion is given merely by way of hint. 

The other constituent of fear is apathy. Very 
bad people are usually very bold. Not because 
they are bad, but because they are up and doing. 
There are two sorts of conscience, the positive and 
the negative. One says " Do," the other says 
" Don't." For a long while, very good people 

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have cultivated the negative one to death, leaving 
the positive one for the reckless use of people with 
vitality to squander. The cry of to-day is for men 
and women who combine the martyr's motive and 
the conqueror's method. We are wont to fear, 
not in the presence of real danger — for then God 
appears in the breach; but in the expectation of 
mere unpleasantness, where the human of us may 
have to suffer as it should. Life is nothing, 
growth is everything; and if the worst thing should 
fall upon us, namely, death, we grow more, at a 
leap, when we die than we could even vision while 
we lived. 

"How is it possible to be efficient or happy 
when, on account of a very wretched past, every 
man's hand is against me? " 

The past lies between you and God. No man 
has any right to judge it, and the fact that men 
do proves them either ignorant or guilty. Con- 
demnation is always one of these two things — ig- 
norance or guilt. To have the power whose un- 
wise expression we call sin, and to command it 
fully, is to be infinitely gentle with the sinner. Be 
very sure that the man who judges harshly is of a 
scant, mean and suspicious nature, or else his con- 
science goads him into chastising himself over your 
head. Hence, criticism from the unworthy is 

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itself unworthy. Ignore it, forget it if you 
can. 

I do not really think you are being hurt in this 
way. Probably what hurts is a lesson half 
learned. The greater a mistake, the greater the 
lesson. But the memory of the mistake will be an 
open wound, until the spirit of entire consecration 
has healed it. Are you making the best of the 
wrong that has been? Have you raised over the 
ashes of youth the altar of an everlasting ideal? 
Do you put your whole soul into the problem, joy 
or duty of this one moment — which alone creates 
Eternity ? 

You cannot " live down " a past; you must live 
it out, then rise above it. Whatever the penalty 
is — from the blind world's damnation to the re- 
morse, keener and deeper, of your own awakened 
soul — whatever the penalty is, stand up to it like 
a soldier; never mind being happy, there's time 
enough for that in the ages to come; start being 
true, every inch and atom; only thus can you re- 
build the temple of innocence whose preservation 
is the hardest thing for a man or woman to achieve 
— and the most worth while. Be comforted a 
little ; those who have erred must be God's favor- 
ite children, for He makes them, if they will, both 
stronger and purer than those who were never 
tempted. 

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" I have been looking for happiness all my life, 
and have met disappointment until I have felt that 
it did not pay to look for anything good or pleasant 
in this life on earth; but in spite of the failure of 
many plans and ambitions, I am still hoping to 
learn the way to happiness." 

What you need is a pair of spectacles — I 
shouldn't be surprised if Happiness had met you 
often in the street and was greatly pained at being 
snubbed by you with your gaze in the sky. You 
need a telescope, with which to take the long view 
of things — and a microscope with which to study 
yourself at close range. How do you know your 
plans " failed"? Are you omniscient? That is 
impossible, because if you were you would know 
that no such thing as failure exists anywhere in 
the Universe. You may have to try a couple of 
times more, after practising long enough to do 
things right. Or, you may be led along some way 
not of your own rash choosing. But you're bound 
to arrive; a million solar systems could not hold 
you back. 

Why don't you brace up and hit the game for 
what fun there is in it? That's the real reward 
anyhow — your good and pleasant things sound 
like milk-and-water, which can't sustain a fellow 
with a genuine backbone. I suspect you're 
womanish — womanish in a wrong way. You've 

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been entertaining Disappointment, feeding him on 
the fat of the land, and remonstrating when he 
had to go and visit his other numerous hosts and 
hostesses. Wrong treatment altogether. Disap- 
pointment is like a tramp — set the dog on him 
and he won't come back. Get a padlock for your 
heart, so the vagrants can't climb in. 

The answer to your problem may be this : your 
ambitions have not squared with your destiny. 
When your ambitions and your aspirations coin- 
cide, you will get what you want. The line of 
progress marked out for the human soul is on- 
ward and upward, together. For instance, if you 
want money and don't have it, your spiritual na- 
ture is defective; or if you have it and don't enjoy 
losing it, you are a spiritual pauper; in short, pos- 
sessions must accompany developed possibilities — 
but we must not look to possessions for the joy that 
lies in development alone. Every ambition gone 
to smash means a better set of trained faculties; 
and the reason for ambition is to give you that. 
Plug along some more. 

" I suppose you will agree that happiness comes 
as a result or consequence of certain creeds trans- 
lated into harmonious conduct, rather than as an 
object to be sought directly? " 

This idea of happiness more nearly expresses 

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the ultimate than any suggested hitherto. How 
many people have a creed which is vital enough to 
impel the living of it? The genius has — and he 
pays with starvation ; the martyr has — and he 
pays with death; the real mother has — and she 
pays with suffering often worse than death; all 
these disciples of their own belief attain such a 
pinnacle of happiness, through doing what they 
feel is right, that their anguish is forgotten and 
their life transfigured. The amount of spiritual 
death everywhere manifest can be traced largely 
to this; that people live according to their opin- 
ions and not according to their beliefs. Convic- 
tion should be the mainspring of action; no matter 
what the conviction, if it is honest the action will 
be right. It is better to be true to a false God 
than false to a true. The mere vitalizing of a 
creed spiritualizes the possessor. There are thou- 
sands of business men who have no verbal religion, 
yet who because they live the best they know are 
nearer the Kingdom of Heaven than the exhorter 
who merely repeats what he has heard about God. 
Life is religion, there can be no other. 

If we could all from this moment start acting 
our beliefs in every particular, we should find this 
world as glorious as the Heaven we have learned 
to imagine in the skies because there was no place 
for it here. 

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" How can we learn to rise above routine — to 
feel freedom in spite of the routine of our work- 
a-day life and its necessary duties?" 

The end of routine is freedom — the only prob- 
lem is to see just how. Few of those who are 
apparently free know what to do with themselves ; 
and freedom is but opportunity for self-expression. 
The man born to wealth fritters it away, the 
woman who is given leisure has no sense of the 
value of time, the child who pays nothing for its 
education learns little worth knowing. There is 
no genuine freedom save that produced by friction. 

Close to every work-a-day life, three avenues 
pass to liberation; the avenue of loving service, the 
avenue of ambition, the avenue of spare-time un- 
foldment. 

Whether your work is in the home or the office, 
you can make the conscious purpose of it to en- 
sure the welfare, comfort and happiness of your 
loved ones. Such a motive buoys the soul. Ab- 
solute devotion to those we love is the crest-light 
of freedom, only by its radiance do we achieve the 
summit. 

Again, all intelligent work leads to promotion. 
Are you keenly alive to the opportunities for ad- 
vancement in your business or profession? Is 
there a weakness or lack in yourself which keeps 

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you subject to the monotonous grind of things? 
If you make the utmost to to-day's work, you cre- 
ate opportunity for to-morrow. Be always look- 
ing for something better — looking and knowing 
it will come. 

Again, what are you doing with your leisure- 
hours? Epictetus was a slave; but he found time 
to elaborate an immortal philosophy of life. Bun- 
yan was a prisoner; but he made of his prison a 
scene of masterful creatorship; because there was 
a prison there is a " Pilgrim's Progress." Abra- 
ham Lincoln made Emancipation his watchword; 
but not until he had doubled his routine, adding 
to that of enforced toil that of enforced study. 
What is your heart's supreme desire? Learn to 
lose yourself in the consummation of it, or the 
preparation for it, whenever the duties of the day 
permit. Not the crowding by routine, but the 
crushing of idealism, is the perpetual menace to 
freedom. 

Finally, cultivate your subjective powers. Mys- 
ticism, poetry, music, some phase of religion or 
love, will transport you beyond the urgent call of 
everyday existence, into a realm of calm and joy- 
ous prescience; where you can feel the soul un- 
trammeled, clear, pure, immortal. And the soul 
is always free. 

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" Will you not emphasize the importance to the 
wife and mother of a household, of change of 
scene and occupation? So few of them realize 
it is a necessity and enables them to perform du- 
ties with more happiness and efficiency." 

If a business man stuck to his office as a house- 
wife sticks to her home, there would shortly be no 
man and no office. The man would be worn to a 
shadow, and the office would be vanished in the 
smoke and combustion of a man's lurid wrath over 
petty irritations. The man who succeeds locks his 
job in his office and doesn't allow it to follow him 
home. There is nothing so docile as a job that 
you can drive — and nothing so domineering as a 
job that drives you. 

It is not the nature of woman to fret; it is the 
nature of woman to endure in silence beyond the 
power of man to conceive. But she must work 
for the one she loves, and she must have under- 
standing from the one she loves. Given this 
motive with this reward and there is no task too 
hard, no day too long, no pain too bitter. I sus- 
pect that the majority of ailing, irritable, over- 
worked housewives suffer not from too much toil 
but from too little appreciation. 

Even the tenderest, wisest husband seldom re- 
alizes the physical, mental and nervous strain that 
the profession of wife and mother involves. In- 

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deed, the best husbands are the ones who expect 
their wives always to be at home. Quite apart 
from the countless duties and endless responsibil- 
ities of home-making, there is in every normal 
woman a hidden something of the gipsy, the 
sprite, the fairy, or the savage. Poets understand 
this — but poets aren't much good as husbands 
until they recover; the man to satisfy a woman is 
a man who is all business in the office and all ro- 
mance at home. 

If you want to give your wife a delicious sur- 
prise, give her a day's outing at least once a 
month. Go with her, or allow her to go alone, 
whichever she prefers. But don't tell her in ad- 
vance when or how the day of pleasure will be 
spent. (Of course if she doesn't like surprises, 
she is either unbendingly old or hopelessly 
civilized, then this suggestion will be out of 
place.) 

The important thing is to provide a complete 
change from darning, washing dishes, planning 
meals, going marketing, running errands, listening 
for the doorbell and telephone, tidying up the 
house, settling childish quarrels and healing child- 
ish bruises. 

There is a law of soul-rebound which may be 
stated thus; the utmost of happiness, and of effi- 
ciency, arises where extremes meet. Get as deep 
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into your work as possible, then as far away from 
it as possible, then back again. 

Love your home enough to leave it before you 
tire of it. And if you do tire of it or any of its 
belongings, don't blame the home — blame the rut 
in your mind, that surrounds the home. 

" How can one sympathize with one's friends' 
ills without danger of weakening them by pity? " 

The first, and real, meaning of the word sym- 
pathize is " to feel, or experience with " another. 
Because so few allow themselves to feel deeply 
except under great sorrow, the word has taken a 
mournful aspect. Sympathy with humor, with 
courage, with brotherhood, with hope — this kind 
of sympathy is worth more to the ounce than your 
grief-charged oceans of tears will assay to the ton. 
The time to sympathize with your friend is in ad- 
vance of his sorrows — then he will turn to you 
instinctively and you need but be natural. It is 
commiseration that weakens; and commiseration 
is artificial, being what we think we ought to say 
under the circumstances. 

Your friend in trouble needs two things — a 
moment of silent understanding; then a lifetime 
of insistent empowering. Don't prolong the mo- 
ment beyond its due. If a sudden death or disas- 
ter has buried your friend in gloom leave him 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

prone for a while, until the numbness and the 
weeping have spent themselves. He needed this 
enforced period of reflection, or it would not have 
come. But the instant when he is ready to take 
up his life again, help him plunge into activity so 
new, fresh, attractive and stimulating that the old 
sad associations are gradually forgotten. The 
man with a grief has got to be made to do things. 

If your friend is a typical chronic invalid, punch 
him — literally or figuratively. He needs wak- 
ing up. The cure for the man who " enjoys poor 
health " is brusquerie — not balm. 

In dealing with those who think themselves un- 
fortunate, keep always in your own mind this life- 
saving thought: " How can I help my friend be 
strong to meet his crisis, win his battle, learn his 
lesson, turn his loss into gain, discover himself in 
the process, and pass on to greater heights of 
achievement?" Woes are hidden wellsprings of 
blessing. Dig, and be refreshed. 

" I want you to write to the optimists who 
are creating pessimists among their families and 
friends, the idealists who insist on building towers 
before their foundations are properly secured, who 
make idealism obnoxious to every one connected 
with them. I am an optimist both by natural in- 
clination and by stern education, but of late I am 
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tottering toward realism and ' things as they are/ 
I know you have had similar lessons in living and 
will give my idea clear expression." 

This reminds one of the classic definition of a 
pessimist: u a man who has to live with an op- 
timist." 

Incorrigible, unreasoning, optimists are pes- 
tiferous beyond compare. As June-bugs in your 
path, as lightning-bugs in your sleeping chamber, 
as just plain " bugs " in your psychopathic audit- 
ing-department, they flit and buzz and bother while 
other creatures gray and grim do the work of the 
world. There is little hope for the man who does 
not sometimes lose all hope. Such a man is an 
insect. 

Human life too often is a tragedy from the 
cradle to the grave ; a tragedy of ignorance, weak- 
ness, selfishness, compromise, cruelty, misunder- 
standing, heartache, dumb stupidity, and black in- 
justice. To look at such a world and only smile 
is to be void of human sensibility. 

Moreover, the genuine idealists do not talk. 
They dream, plan, work, wait, fight, suffer, almost 
despair, but never give up, in silence. Whoever 
makes ''idealism obnoxious" is moon-struck; he 
reflects a borrowed philosophy of life, he does not 
radiate his own. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

The ultimate of everything is good. But the 
ultimate is a long way off. And if you aren't 
called upon to meet gruelling hardships and pass 
through fearful conditions, you may know your 
mental and spiritual muscles are so weak that God 
only pities you, deeming you unworthy of a real 
test. Children babble pretty nothings ; but if chil- 
dren did that all their lives they would become 
idiots. There are such things as metaphysical 
idiots, who have lost their intelligence in the repe- 
tition of a pet phrase or empty " affirmation." 
Confirm your affirmation, or else don't make it. 

Be happy, all you can. But don't, in the name 
of a long-suffering public, make " Be happy " your 
only morning salutation to your friends. If you 
do, they will hope you may always oversleep. 

" Is thought stored in the brain, or is it a vibra- 
tion of universal force ? " 

" Does not the experience of many warrant the 
belief that thought can be transmitted from mind 
to mind, or to the subconsciousness of the recip- 
ient, without using means by which ideas are usu- 
ally conveyed? Does not the exercise of thought 
create wave motions, or pulsations which are per- 
ceived very clearly by other minds when at- 
tuned?" 

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Where do ideas come from? This question has 
puzzled the world's greatest thinkers, from pre- 
historic times to this very moment. 

Some biologists and materialistic philosophers 
claim that inner thought follows outer sensations, 
that only as we perceive objects do we conceive 
ideas. The fallacy of this appears, however, 
from the lives of precocious children; if Mozart 
was a skilled musician at four years of age, what 
explains the phenomenon except that a gift was 
born in him? 

Others hold that we evolve ideas from our own 
sub-conscious depths, having stored them in the 
soul through previous incarnations and brought 
them with us at birth. Others believe that mental 
concepts follow the law of sex, there being always 
a positive and a negative or electric and magnetic 
polarity in the brain of the thinker. Still others 
declare that our best thoughts are inspired by 
angels, or supermundane guides, who exercise over 
us in the psychic world the same loving watch-care 
that earthly parents feel toward their children. 

There is no question of the actuality of telep- 
athy. Times without number the writer has 
focused on plans and ideas in the quiet of his own 
room, only to find that a friend or business asso- 
ciate came to him the next day with almost the 
identical thoughts and conclusions. May not 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

poets be unconscious pirates — absorbing the ideas 
and fancies of dreamers in the spirit-world who 
left this planet before their message was deliv- 
ered? A few months ago, the newspapers were 
full of the story of a man who was impelled by a 
celestial force to paint landscapes — though he 
had not the faintest knowledge of art. He said 
he was possessed by the spirit of a great landscape- 
painter who had recently died. Such a statement 
is no longer held absurd — we have at least 
learned enough about psychic possibilities to know 
that we dare not scoff at any manifestation of the 
unseen world. 

Can't you feel the atmosphere of a home as soon 
as you enter? If you can't, Heaven pity the folks 
in your home — because you will disturb their 
psychic equilibrium and be totally unconscious of 
the fact. Every mind is grounded in a certain 
kind of thought. The vein may be gold or sil- 
ver, pig-metal or mud. It is fitting to secure a 
good residential site for the mind of us, which is 
the reality. 

" Does the body serve us most perfectly, and in 
the most vigorous condition, when we are thinking 
most or least about it? " 

The purely animal functions work best when 
left alone — the purely human functions work best 
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when completely governed by the human brain. 
Animal functions include the vital processes that 
we share in common with our neighbors of the 
forest — eating, sleeping, bathing, exercising, and 
the like. Human functions include the operations 
of mental or manual skill exacted by our industries 
and pleasures. Think when you work — don't 
think when you eat. 

But this should be remembered; we have al- 
lowed the natural instincts to be thwarted and per- 
verted by ignorant human minds — hence we must 
recover these instincts by the help of trained hu- 
man minds. That means to think enough about 
the body so that we shan't need to think about it. 
We aren't healthy until we are unconscious that 
our body exists as a body. When the soul fully 
permeates the body, all distinction ceases. 

" Can we accomplish anything by continually 
trying though continually failing? " 

A little child just learning to walk might ask 
this question — but the father could not answer it. 
You see the baby would only feel its bruises and 
sob, while the father would only watch its muscles 
and smile. You cannot reason with a sobbing 
child — you must either comfort him, or make him 
think of something else. 

Sometimes we think we fail. But God knows 

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better. God lets us keep on trying, because we 
would not listen if He spoke. You have not 
failed while the impulse of endeavor still throbs in 
your heart. Failing is ceasing to try. 

What is the practical answer to your question? 
Simply this: You are either doing the wrong 
thing, or doing the right thing in a wrong way. 
If the causes of failure can be removed, change 
your method; if they cannot, change your avenue. 

" Will you not tell us how to avoid the evils of 
civilization? " 

It can't be done. It would take a library. But 
as libraries are a part of civilization, we should 
have to be consistent and inscribe our treatise on 
a few miles of papyrus with a scratchy goose-quill. 
We haven't time. 

Seriously, the greatest curse of the world to-day 
is civilization. It is also the greatest blessing. 
Great boons, to steady them, always carry great 
banes. 

Civilization is disease, civilization is poverty, 
civilization is immorality, civilization is hypocrisy, 
civilization is worry, despair, injustice, crime. 

Civilization is also invention, ambition, im- 
provement, refinement, hope, altruism, intelligent 
companionship. And, as always, the good out- 
runs the evil. We cannot be gods before we are 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



men. We cannot be men until we have endured 
civilization for a time. 

" I should like to ask whether attainable happi- 
ness here has necessarily a material side? And 
to what extent? " 

Yes. Material beings cannot reside wholly in 
an immaterial world. Most of us need things, 
nearly all of us need people, to make us happy. 
But things and people have a spiritual significance, 
which — properly understood — lifts them out of 
the sordid and verifies them in the real. 

I suppose a normal woman could not be happy 
without pretty clothes; I am quite sure a normal 
man could not be happy without " filling " food; 
— and perhaps God meant her to be vain and him 
to be greedy, that each might grow to be some- 
thing better. Vanity is self-respect turned inside 
out, greed is strength in embryo. When the world 
has grown a little, the strength of man will lie in 
his brain and the self-respect of woman in her 
soul. Then will beef-steak dinners and millinery 
pageants vanish with the rest of the toys, props 
and makeshifts of human evolution. 

Whatever we earn, or make, for ourselves be- 
longs in our scheme of happiness. There should 
be a law forbidding the inheritance of great 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

wealth. Patrimony is usually theft of the man 
who gets it — it steals his ambition, which is 
worth more than money. In this respect Andrew 
Carnegie is ideal; he is equally happy making 
money or giving it away. 

There are so-called " spiritual " teachers who 
affect to despise the world of finance. Trust them 
not — they are generally the first to grab every- 
thing in sight when nobody's looking. 

We can be happy without money — we cannot 
be happy without the power to earn money. The 
ecstasy of the poet is one phase of happiness, the 
vigor of the plodder is another. Put the form of 
your vision in the grasp of your vise, then you 
shape and hew and build securely. And then you 
find money a spiritual quantity. 

" Is it not true that the spiritual feeds the mind; 
and the mind being well fed, the body needs less 
material food? " 

This is absolutely true — only those who have 
experienced it know how true. If a poor man, 
or a stingy man, wished to economize, he could 
do no better than make a thorough study of the 
truths of life that we endeavor to convey. For 
the more a man knows, the less he needs. 

Some years ago, the writer used to eat " three 

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square meals " a day, and also nibble when he had 
a chance. Then he was surly, gloomy, irritable, 
physically weak and mentally inefficient. 

Now he enjoys one or two meals a day — never 
more — with nothing between meals. And he 
does about five times the work he used to, with 
more ease than he felt doing nothing but sitting 
around waiting for the dinner-bell. Also, he is 
better natured, as I hope you can testify. 

Natural tastes call for inexpensive things; a 
hungry child loves a bowl of bread-and-milk, while 
a rich and pampered child must have costly chef- 
made dishes or refuse to eat. Financially, it pays 
to grow spiritually. 

Moreover, the enjoyment is greater. Senses 
are not like muscles. Muscles grow strong as 
they grow large — senses grow strong as they 
grow delicate. Spiritualize your senses and a 
crust of bread will be sweeter to you than a feast 
of luxuries addressed only to the palate. 

It is said that disembodied spirits live on per- 
fume, color and music. Possibly a scientific way 
to prepare for Heaven would be to study, adopt 
and assimilate the finer means of nourishment of- 
fered us on earth. Too many bodies thrive while 
souls starve. Appease the sensibilities, if you 
would develop the soul to its highest stature. For 
senses are only buds of sensibilities; and the hun- 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

ger of the soul is for love, the thirst of the soul is 
for light. 

" If all the laws governing the body were known 
and kept, would there be any necessity for heal- 
ing?" 

No more than for punishing — jails, reforma- 
tories, and hospitals belong in the same category 
of penal institutions. Every ache is the echo of 
a broken law. The sick man is therefore a crim- 
inal to himself. And the disgrace of illness should 
hurt more than the pain. Most disease is a com- 
bination of ignorance, laziness, fear, and dirt. We 
are ashamed of clothes stained with mud and of 
houses festooned with cobwebs. Yet sick bodies 
need only purifying, sick minds need only clear- 
ing; if bodies and minds were as visible as clothes 
and houses, our pride would keep us well. 

It is both undesirable and impossible for one 
man to heal another. Nature does the healing — 
we have only to give her a chance. Cure is but 
the introduction of a doctor to his patient, the 
real work of a real physician is instruction. Small 
doctors chase symptoms, great doctors mold 
habits. There is a positive science of prevention, 
there is no positive science of cure. And the first 
medical college to embody this truth in its curricu- 
lum will sweep the country. The power of medi- 
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cine is more than half mind. Hence the popu- 
larity of certain metaphysical schools of healing 
which, despite their fallacies, do avail (in a man- 
ner unconsciously scientific) to electrify and vivify 
drooping imaginations. 

Health should not only be maintained, health 
should be increased. And it may be — to your 
dying day, when you know your own mind, your 
own body, your own powers of self-expression, 
self-recuperation, self-development. 

" Some teachers of mental science tell us that 
such emotions as anger are extremely injurious, 
acting as a poison to the system. Others assert 
that occasional outbursts of temper (as indigna- 
tion) act upon the mind and body as a tonic. 
What seems to you to be the truth? " 

The truth, as usual, may be found half-way be- 
tween. 

Anger is a poison. But so are emetics and 
purgatives — which we sometimes need, to coun- 
teract the effect of other poisons already in the 
system. Anger is a powerful antidote for such 
deadly things as injustice, insincerity, incompe- 
tency. To be thoroughly indignant because of a 
wrong is purifying, stimulating, hygienic. But to 
be " mad " at people is confusing, depressing, sui- 
cidal. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

The capacity for " righteous indignation " 
grows with our spiritual unfoldment. The man 
who is not a vehement non-conformist is either 
blind or paralyzed. Fighting for a conviction is 
the quickest way to peace. As for hygiene, the 
most invigorating thing you ever did will be this : 
form the habit of challenging compromise ! 

" How can I help those who are dear to me 
whose philosophy is negative, who resist helpful 
suggestion? Is it possible to help them? If it 
is possible, how can I reorganize my forces to do 
it, and yet not impose myself upon them? " 

There isn't anybody you can't help. But your 
knowledge of human nature must be adequate and 
your method of approach scientific; otherwise you 
will fail — though your motive be the purest and 
kindest in the world. And remember that the 
hardest to help are those nearest to us; they see 
all our imperfections, and make out of them punc- 
tuation-marks to end our most eloquent sermon. 
Never preach to a man who knows you; practise 
before him — or keep still. 

Analyze your own question. You say your 
friends " resist helpful suggestions " — I don't be- 
lieve it. They resist suggestions which appear 
helpful to you, but none that would be helpful to 
them. The mind, no less than the stomach, ap- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



propriates just the food it can use; any thought 
which your friend rejects is to him unwholesome. 
He may be mentally disordered — but you may be 
sure he likes just what he needs. 

It is a physiological impossibility for the aver- 
age brain to accept a new idea without protest. 
Did you ever try to pour a bucket of fresh water 
onto a greased surface? What happens to the 
water? The same thing happens to a stream of 
thought directed toward the brain of your friend 
— the flow divides into a thousand minute parti- 
cles, separated by the grease-coat of tradition, cus- 
tom, prejudice and misinformation that envelops 
the brain. No channel has been made for the ac- 
commodation of original thought. And most peo- 
ple resist the encroachment of new ideas because 
they can't afford the time for a mental house-clean- 
ing in preparation. Don't blame them — try 
some other method. 

The emotional brain, which is the solar plexus, 
you will find comparatively free and receptive. In 
short, make your friends love you more — then 
you can give them light. Flowers turn to the sun 
because the sun is life to them ; men and women too 
want life — not philosophy. Make it a rule 
never to offer advice unless you are asked; then 
give it modestly, quietly, preferably in the form of 
a question so that the idea will seem to come from 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

the questioner more than from you. You are 
probably very honest — but not very tactful. Add 
finesse to your spiritual equipment. The best 
way, the most scientific way, to help your friends 
is to empower, unfold and perfect yourself. Be a 
living illustration of your creed and text — then 
watch them ask for the sermon! I have seen 
numbers of cases where an individual began think- 
ing for himself and was immediately voted crazy 
by the rest of his tribe. But that didn't make him 
crazy, and before many years his whole family 
connection were asking his advice on the very 
points they once ridiculed ! Be yourself, and wait. 
Only truth endures. 

" I would like to know how to be happy when 
one's husband has had his emotional and idealistic 
nature almost entirely atrophied by disappoint- 
ments and ill health. My daily life is a problem 
if ever there was one, I have to hide all my spir- 
itual cravings and idealism, because my husband 
is an extreme rationalist, not caring enough about 
advanced literature to read it, and rather pitying 
me for holding such ideas. He is physically and 
mentally ill, but cannot realize that his negative 
thought is a manifestation of disease." 

The loving way to convince a man is to pet him 
into doing anything you want; the logical way is 

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to make him see that you are quite independent of 
him. Have you tried either way? Or have you 
mixed them ? Most wives mix them — and most 
wives are never quite sure of their husbands. The 
woman who can take a definite stand and keep it 
hasn't much occasion to dread her husband's intel- 
lectual contortions ; no matter what he thinks, he 
will respect her enough to be silent. I should 
judge that your happiness depends on your firm- 
ness. 

Don't hide your spiritual cravings — the salva- 
tion of you both depends on your having enough 
idealism for him as well as yourself, until he has 
found the emptiness of the brain and experienced 
the riches of heart and soul. But mold your spir- 
ituality into so vital a form that he won't rec- 
ognize it. And never assume to teach him — 
no man short of an angel will acknowledge that 
a woman can possibly know more than he 
does. 

Concede the wisdom of rationalism, follow him 
to the end of his philosophy, then ask where he 
gets? Does it make him happy, or healthy, or 
popular, or successful? Then is it practical? 
Tell him you are a Pragmatist (if you don't know 
what that is, read Professor James' book on Prag- 
matism) — and as such you demand results — not 
theories. Your husband, with all his rationalism, 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

is a fantastic dreamer if his life doesn't prove the 
wisdom of this talk. 

Moreover, he is behind the times. When 
scores of great scientists, such as Lodge, Flam- 
marion, and Lombroso, publicly announce their 
belief in the psychic world of undeveloped facul- 
ties, surely a mere layman can well afford to re- 
serve judgment, pending investigation. I know a 
doctor, who is an atheist, but who works scientific- 
ally on the religious instinct of his patients in order 
to promote the health of their mental and nervous 
organism. This man has a reputation through- 
out the world, and has probably made more money 
than your husband ever saw. Nothing but ig- 
norance, nowadays, justifies denial of the unseen 
world and its power to shape destiny. 

Do you know where the real pathos of your 
question seems to lie? Not so much in your hus- 
band's ailing body or confused mind as in your 
own unawakened heart. Are you sure you ever 
loved him, with the idolizing, unreserved intensity 
that every normal woman feels toward her mate? 
If so, you would not need to ask advice. Love 
knows more in one instant than all the sages of the 
world could tell in a thousand years. You and the 
man of your choice, thinking, planning, hoping, 
wanting, living, suffering and sacrificing together, 
can face with joy and certainty the problems of the 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



Universe. But it must be together. Make your- 
self one with him, and you will smile to find how 
easy it all is, how nothing really hurts but the sep- 
aration. 

" Do you believe the ideas advocated by Mr. 
Fletcher to be sound? I have been studying the 
matter for years, but am very much puzzled. El- 
bert Hubbard says it is good to Fletcherize, Upton 
Sinclair says it is bad. What is your opinion on 
this subject? Ought one to reject the coarse mat- 
ter in food, or swallow it ? Just a few words will 
help me wonderfully." 

Horace Fletcher has probably done more for 
the American stomach than any other man living. 
We are the " quick-lunch " nation of the world, 
which means the quick-dyspepsia nation. By com- 
pelling us to stop and mix thought with our food, 
Mr. Fletcher has rendered us an incalculable serv- 
ice. His doctrine, briefly stated, is as follows: 
" Eat little; enjoy much; masticate thoroughly; 
have small variety but unlimited choice of edibles ; 
let hunger be your guide; leave drugs unmolested; 
heal yourself; and above all, cheer up ! A mighty 
sensible philosophy and plan of life — but one that 
may be carried to unwise extremes. A man can't 
cheer up with his gaze glued on his insides — they 
aren't pretty. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

The chronic Fletcherite thinks too much about 
his stomach — he is as over-anxious as the cus- 
tomary eater is under-informed. Trepidation at 
meal-time is a veritable psychic vinegar. And the 
modern hygienist uses vinegar sparingly. More- 
over, the tendency of Fletcherism is to coddle the 
stomach; — a robust appetite gets more good out 
of corned beef and cabbage than a weak one does 
out of eggs and milk. The stomach is a muscle, 
and the way to keep a muscle strong is to exercise 
it. During the hours when your body or brain 
is working, cut down your food-supply to the last 
possible notch; but when the need for concentra- 
tion is over and you have time for rest, eat a good 
dinner and be thoroughly satisfied before you 
leave the table. If necessary, take a short fast 
and restore normal hunger; but don't try to eat 
with the idea of starving in the back of your 
head. 

The " coarse matter " in natural food was put 
there to be used. If you swallow nothing but 
what has been reduced to liquid, the peristaltic 
and intestinal activities of digestion won't have 
the proper stimulus, and won't do the proper work. 
Yet all starches, sweets and fats must be liquefied 
through mastication — and here Fletcherism is 
right. Make this discrimination: Whatever is 
soluble, chew till it swallows itself; whatever is in- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



soluble, chew fine and swallow according to your 
instinct. If you like the peel of oranges or apples, 
a little of it is probably just what you need. And 
certainly the fiber of corn, oats and wheat is bene- 
ficial to the average digestion. 

Special ailments preclude all rough elements 
from the alimentary tract. So that if you are 
troubled with gastritis, intestinal catarrh, or any 
other local difficulty producing extreme sensitive- 
ness, it would be well to omit coarse foods tempo- 
rarily. 

Fletcherism is good, as a means of re-discover- 
ing your natural tastes and desires. But every ism 
must be ruled by the I. Let us thank Mr. 
Fletcher with all our heart — then pass on to in- 
dividual supremacy. 

" How can we strengthen a weak will? " 
This question to be answered fully would ne- 
cessitate a personal diagnosis of the mental, phys- 
ical, emotional, psychic and spiritual organism. 
Such an examination is the beginning of real edu- 
cation — yet no school on earth gives it, or even 
suggests the importance of it. Most wrongdoing, 
in the child or the adult, may be traced to either a 
stubborn or a weak will. Hence the will is the 
backbone of character. 

What makes the will weak? Find the cause 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

and you have entered the path of power. Is it 
self-indulgence, poor health, lack of continuity, ex- 
cessive modesty and self-distrust, a habit of con- 
forming to the wishes of others, unsystematic 
work, feeble incentive, or a negative attitude and 
proneness to discouragement? Many factors 
compose the human will. Resolve them into their 
simplest form, and treat each by itself. 

The most stupendous will in history was that of 
Napoleon. What made it? Qualities and facul-y 
ties that any man may develop : — independence, 
imagination, resolution, concentration, persistence, 
nerve, tact, colossal faith in himself and belief in 
his destiny. He saw just what he wanted, then he 
proceeded to get it, and nothing in the Universe 
mattered till he did get it. A weak will is funda- 
mentally a will buried and lost in non-essentials. 
The weakness comes not from inability but from 
restriction. 

One thing may be stated very definitely and con- 
clusively. The weakest will can be transformed 
into a resistless force, through the vitalizing power 
of an all-conquering love. Until you feel such a 
love, your will is not worth energizing ; and when 
you do feel it, neither man, angel or demon could 
thwart your purpose. Get on fire with an adora- 
tion or ambition that leaves you no choice but to 
consume the world in satisfying it. When you 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



have reached that height of fervor — obstacles 
will melt. 

"lam looking for a true, cheerful woman who 
can appreciate the society of an optimist like my- 
self. My work so takes my time that I don't 
have an opportunity to meet desirable people. I 
suppose you will say that you are not running a 
matrimonial bureau ; well, I am adhering to your 
offer and am telling you my problem." 

I hope that none of our readers will be tempted 
to laugh at this man's honest request. Human 
life divides itself into three epochs — birth, death 
and marriage. We cannot as yet individually con- 
trol birth and death (I believe we shall, some 
day) ; hence our entire responsibility focuses in 
marriage. It is the most serious thing in the 
world. Not solemn, or painful, or sad, as igno- 
rant jokesmiths would have us imagine; but so 
fraught with meaning that nothing else begins to 
compare with it. 

Your view of marriage is selfish. The first 
duty of a wife is not to " appreciate your society.'* 
This antiquated idea, proudly held for ages by the 
bogus lords of creation, is fast being exploded — 
thanks to the education and ambition of the mod- 
ern woman. You cannot marry for pleasure, you 
cannot marry for business, you must not marry for 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

anything but love. And love means worship be- 
fore it means want. Marriage as a business fails; 
marriage as a pleasure turns to grief; marriage as 
a religion becomes a business that succeeds, and a 
pleasure that deepens with the years. What is 
your motive ? 

You cannot select a wife as you would pick a 
dainty shell, or pluck a sweet flower, from the 
shores and dells of experience where you wander. 
Mates are born — not sought and chosen arbi- 
trarily. If you could make a hundred new women 
friends every day, that wouldn't solve your prob- 
lem. For the One Woman might be on the other 
side of the globe. She will come, when you are 
/ready. Your anxiety should be not possession, 
r but preparation. Do you know how to treat a 
wife ? Have you mastered the laws of physiology 
and psychology that underlie a happy marriage? 
What sort of father will you be? Are you rever- 
ent, fine, immaculate in thought as well as deed? 
Could you fulfil the utmost ideal of the kind of 
woman you are looking for? Study your own 
life ; the map will take care of itself. 

Marriage is a query — not a quest. The query 
is "Am I ready? " Answer this right; and the 
woman God made for you will be drawn to you, 
irresistibly drawn by the forces of mental, magnetic 
and spiritual attraction, which perhaps you may 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



not see but which operate as subtly and surely as 
the hidden currents of the earth directing the point 
of the mariner's compass. Remember that space 
is nothing to the soul. Perceive, clarify, energize 
your own soul; and somewhere, beyond the veil of 
human vision, the woman to complete your life will 
respond. 

" Can one, and how, prevent loss of memory 
with advancing years? " 

Loss of memory is loss of superficiality. It 
would be a mercy if we could not remember a hun- 
dredth part of the things we do. That which 
leaves an impress on the soul can never be forgot- 
ten. We recall with the brain, we remember with 
the soul. You can teach your brain to recall 
things — if you can spare the time. But your 
soul remembers only that which helps your devel- 
opment. And the number of things you forget 
shows how many things were useless. 

Names may fade away — but names are only 
words. Dates and figures may grow confused — 
but dates and figures halt the Eternal, circumscribe 
the Limitless. Even the faces of dear friends may 
stir no sign of recognition — but what of their 
life's message graven on the heart? When recall- 
ing ceases, realizing begins. The passing of the 
form of things may denote the coming of the spirit. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

When love is universal, memory will be immortal. 
For when love is universal, we shall value only the 
thing we feel. And that we always remember. 

Why do you look backward, and strain for a 
dim sight of the past? Are you filling the present 
with eager, strong, purposeful activity? Are you 
building steadily for the future — yours, or that 
of your dear ones? Do you faithfully cherish a 
many-sided interest in life, adding your utmost to 
the weal of your community? Let the past go. 
It is gone. Make your marching orders " Right 
about face ! " Then swing into step with the 
youthful battalions of those who chant not their 
years but their hopes. 

" Is not much unhappiness caused by regret, 
much time and energy wasted ? Sorrow and regret 
can positively not exist if we regard and accept 
everything as experience. If we retain in our 
memory only the lesson instead of the bitterness 
— the meaning instead of the form in which it 
came, we will find development but never unhappi- 
ness. And the more development, the firmer 
foundation for happiness." 

This is absolutely true. We may go further, 
and say that regret is a memory of our own weak- 
ness, a mark of our own ignorance, or a conscious- 
ness of our own wrong-doing. And what perpetu- 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



ates sorrow is a willingness to go on erring — if 
we knew in our hearts that we should never again 
repeat the mistake or its like, we would only be 
thankful for the lesson. We never exert strength 
while we indulge sorrow. Philosophy, medita- 
tion, a clear vision and ready acknowledgment of 
past faults may brighten the backward look and 
keep us from unwholesome brooding. But for 
regret there is only one positive cure — resolution. 
To face your sorrow bravely, study it calmly, find 
why it was needed for your growth, plan how to 
use the lesson fully, then stiffen your moral back- 
bone and go at the new spiritual exercise with a 
royal vim and conqueror's determination — this is 
to make of sorrow a smile's beginning. 

" Are there not some situations in which people 
cannot be happy? And therefore cannot do their 
most and best? Suppose a son or daughter has 
gone wrong; can the parent be happy? When a 
child has become thoroughly bad, growing ever 
more shameful and hardened, how can the mother 
who is a fine Christian woman discover joy in this 
experience ? 

" I delight in your teaching. It is inspiring 
and exceedingly helpful. But is it for those who 
need it most? I write in all sincerity, seeking 
light." 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

There are some situations in which people can- 
not be happy. But every such condition was cre- 
ated by the person whom it pains and distresses. 
And if we have made mistakes, the willingness to 
suffer and live out the penalty brings a kind 
of exultation more noble than simple enjoy- 
ment. 

Many a " fine Christian woman " is a failure as 
a mother. The first business of women through 
the ages has been the rearing of children. Yet 
the average bride of today knows as little of the 
science of parenthood as her prehistoric grand- 
mother did. In respect to the household, men, 
whose business is financing children, are centuries 
ahead of women, whose business is unfolding chil- 
dren. No son or daughter could go wrong if the 
parents had the right motives and the right meth- 
ods. And the special work of the mother is to im- 
plant such firm ideals that no amount of tempta- 
tion in after life can uproot them. 

I wonder if the son or daughter in this case may 
not be growing more hardened because of the 
mother's unwise attitude ? Working with the sin- 
ner has often proved successful when working 
against the sin accomplished nothing. If the 
mother can remember that she herself was to 
blame for the defective training of the child, she 
at least will avoid being Pharisaic, and will co- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



operate rather than condemn. The worst crim- 
inal cannot hold out against the one who loves him 
hard enough and long enough. 

The great joy in a great tragedy or disappoint- 
ment is never found all at once. But when we are 
able to look at things as God sees them, we realize 
how short one life is, how many ages we have in 
which to build character, and how the deepest 
wrongs may be changed into the finest lessons. 
The natures most severely tempted are the ones 
with magnificent powers, but no understanding of 
the best way to use them. The greatest sinner is 
the greatest potential saint. Enough wisdom, 
enough kindness, enough patience, hope and for- 
giveness — this is all you need to reclaim the err- 
ing. 

Again : do you realize that crime is a disease, to 
be diagnosed and treated as any other ailment, 
with a physical, mental and moral regime of sci- 
entific nature? There is a positive joy in learning 
that our friends do wrong not through malice but 
through ignorance, weakness or disorder. Ask a 
physician or minister trained in psychotherapy for 
a thorough explanation — then at least your con- 
fidence will be restored in the child who has erred. 
And that is the friendly beginning of all redemp- 
tion. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

" Why is it that the friends one needs so much 
at times are always at a distance, and the ones at 
hand seem so inadequate to help? Would it be 
reversed if we were with the ones we think could 
aid us? Is it always those afar off that are the 
nearest and dearest? Can we never be properly 
appreciated by those with whom we are in personal 
contact, nor can we on the other hand fully com- 
prehend the natures of those at close range? Is 
it ever thus — we are never great except to those 
who do not know us personally ? " 

Distant friends are greatest because we view 
them through a halo of idealism. If we could al- 
ways live up to our own standard of unselfishness 
and efficiency, we should find our neighbors most 
lovable. And the greatness of common people is 
clearly shown whenever a sudden crisis — like a 
burning home or a national disaster — appeals to 
the motives which are seldom stirred. Nearly 
every man is great, when the need is great enough. 

The friends at a distance often seem closer be- 
cause we ourselves attracted them in correspond- 
ence to our own growth ; whereas the acquaintance 
of youth went with our surroundings and family 
inheritance, these being superficial and ephemeral. 
Instead of bemoaning a lack of sympathy in the 
people next door, why not enjoy and utilize the 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



helpful understanding of those you have seen by 
faith alone? 

Isn't it more wonderful to be loved on the 
strength of mere words and thoughts traversing 
half the globe, than because of a personal touch or 
direct exchange of benefits? If you have one 
friend who believes in you utterly, he might live 
in Africa or China yet be a constant source of in- 
spiration. Be guided more by what you feel than 
by what you see. Affection has no limits, of time 
or space or circumstance. Realize that, and be 
glad. 

" Optimism is beautiful in theory but hopeless 
in real distress. Good for past and future trou- 
bles, but the present trouble could not be effaced 
by its smile." 

What is the present trouble but the result of 
past mistakes? Put an end, swift and final, to the 
habit of erring and the cause of troubles vanishes 
forever. 

I am glad this point was raised. If all criti- 
cisms were as honest, they would be more helpful 
than the majority of questions. 

There are times when real distress is the only 

way to happiness. Sensibility is the gauge of 

growth. And the capacity to feel anything deeply 

must bring suffering in a world as crude as this. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

But unless we can smile through our tears, the 
habit of smiling avails nothing. Our teaching is 
that of absolute faith under all conditions. This 
far-seeing attitude, resolutely kept, will reveal joy 
even in despair. 

If you were half-starved, and emaciated from 
years of unsatisfied hunger, you would not expect 
the plumpness and robustness of health to return 
with the first morsel of real food. Digestion, as- 
similation, exercise, and rest must precede. Ac- 
cording to the same law does mental and spiritual 
food give nourishment. We must do the right 
thing and let Nature have her time. Character is 
no miracle, but a slow and painful growth bravely 
accomplished in the face of difficulty. Character 
and happiness are one, to separate them is to lose 
both. 

" How shall we get along smoothly with people 
who oppose us? " 

People never oppose us — they oppose what is 
in us, or in them, that should not be. Conse- 
quently, the way to annul opposition is to find the 
undesirable trait, and remove it. This is not al- 
ways possible. While tigers are tigers and doves 
are doves, there will be people who cannot live 
together; the tiger-people because they will not 
cultivate gentleness are shamed by the presence of 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



the doves ; the dove-people because they cannot de- 
velop strength are shamed by the presence of the 
tigers; and each complacent animal votes the other 
a depraved and worthless citizen ! 

As a rule, however, friction takes place in a re- 
gion of unsuspected falseness, where the habits 
and conventions of life have obscured the real is- 
sues. When we begin to grow mentally or spirit- 
ually we find that our old acquaintances gradually 
fall away just as the friends of our childhood give 
place to those of maturity. If conditions are such 
that we are held in close proximity with those who 
no longer understand us, then we begin to experi- 
ence the everlasting opposition between social 
custom and individual aspiration. Before con- 
cluding, however, that the others are to blame we 
must be very sure that the difference of opinion 
results from growth on our part. Even if it does 
there is no excuse for conflict. Wherever inhar- 
mony arises, either we are not voicing our own 
melody or we are sounding it so feebly that far- 
away discords intrude where they should not. 

Opposition always indicates weakness in the op- 
posed, and the end thereof is to compel strength. 
Independence thrives on difficulty. And when 
the world is against us we should rejoice the more 
because of the chance for swifter growth. Truth 
and one are a majority. Where one and the 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

crowd disagree, the crowd is as much more wrong 
as there are people in it; because in proportion to 
its size the crowd interferes, and interference is 
always wrong. 

On the other hand, the eccentricities of the in- 
dividual should be modified according to the feel- 
ing of the world at large. We cannot be wholly 
right and offend our neighbor in the slightest de- 
gree. If people remonstrate with us, they only 
acquaint us with ourselves. Could there be a 
service more friendly? 

" To a person leading a busy materialistic life, 
how can greatest benefit be derived for a spiritual 
uplift to be carried into everyday life to meet the 
demands of every hour? " 

A busy life is not necessarily materialistic. To 
the opposite, a spiritual life must be active, radi- 
ant, intensely, powerfully vital. Truth in the 
clouds means nothing — Truth in the world as it 
is means everything. What keeps the majority 
from being spiritual is their unspiritual idea of 
spirituality. The first thing for a busy person to 
realize is the presence of Deity in the task of the 
hour. Religion, needing exercise, departs from 
the chancel and goes to the washtub or the ditch. 
Moral sinews grow strongest in the market-place, 
where the hurry, grime and din of life's hard bat- 
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tie put our hold on God to the test. Be glad for 
the balance that nothing ensures but the steady 
pressure of materialistic forces. 

The idea of " spiritual uplift " is not wholly 
clear to the majority of conscientious people. A 
spiritual uplift is valuable only to the point of 
gaining our own vision — after that, what we need 
is the purpose and determination to face ordinary 
conditions without the emotional impetus that ac- 
companies religious feeling. A spiritual uplift 
for every hour is not spiritual but hysterical. A 
spiritual backbone is essential for every hour and 
moment. 

Those who find the materialism of the world in 
conflict with their own higher nature have but 
failed to sense the heart of things, which is always 
buoyant. The surface things of life cloy, irritate 
or deaden, not because they exist but because we 
do not animate them with a vital purpose. The 
first suggestion would be this : do nothing without 
a definite motive. Instead of allowing routine to 
gain the upper hand, overmaster it with an ideal 
powerful enough to sweep away the consciousness 
of routine. In short, love the object of your work 
so tremendously that the mode of accomplishment 
may be transfigured in the light of expectation. 
This applies equally to an ambition or an affec- 
tion; the great souls of the world are able to for- 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

get the petty vexations and trials of human experi- 
ence in the larger vision of what these things lead 
to. When the goal of endeavor is unselfish, the 
path contains no thorns. 

One simple exercise, if made a habit, will pro- 
vide a spiritual uplift for each day as it comes. 
The first thing in the morning, go alone and in im- 
agination lift yourself above whatever unimpor- 
tant things may happen during the course of the 
day. The best method for you may be a long 
walk at sunrise, or a short period of meditation, 
or a little communion with some poet, philosopher 
or mystic, or a season of prayer, or a happy song, 
or an exercise in deliberate cultivation of will- 
power to force you through the demands, expected 
or unexpected, that your labor involves. If neces- 
sary, rise a half-hour earlier; or plan some other 
way to make aloofness your spiritual compass. 
The habit of listening to one's self in every crisis 
will, when confirmed as second nature, answer each 
longing in the most confused life. 

" Is the highest form of happiness to be attained 
by studying to make ourselves happy, or in service 
for others ? " 

We should never study to make ourselves 
happy. We should only realize and express the 
whole of us. Being unhappy is merely falling 

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short of our possibilities. We may be the war- 
rior, born to conquer at any cost; or we may be 
the angel of mercy, born to heal the bruises that 
mark the wake of the warrior. Being one's self 
is everything, and happiness thrown in. 

The rose blooms and the lark sings, each in its 
own sweet way. The sun shines and the earth 
waits for the melting of the dew; the huge clouds 
deliver themselves and the tiny green things wave 
in thanksgiving; solar systems plow through space 
careless of aught save their own impulsion and 
never a mite in their path is lost from out God's 
plan ; age follows age by swift, exact progression ; 
world mates with world and mate finds mate ; you 
and I are here because the same Power moves 
within us, urging us to know ourselves as one ; what 
comes to either goes to aid the other; throughout 
the Universe whatever is, in being that, cheers and 
lights and blesses all things else. 

" What is the science of eugenics, and how far 
may its teachings be safely followed by parents 
who wish to provide the best for their children, 
while avoiding the extremes and vagaries of pres- 
ent-day fads? " 

Eugenics is the science of being " well born." 
It has two leading doctrines: (i) prohibition of 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

the unfit, (2) education of the fit. Disciples of 
eugenics would prevent the marriage of those per- 
manently disordered, such as the insane or feeble- 
minded, the epileptic, cancerous or consumptive, 
and the morally degenerate. They would also re- 
quire an educational standard for wedlock, com- 
pelling future parents to know how to bring chil- 
dren into the world under best conditions, and how 
to save the babies from disease and death by the 
proper use of air, light, water, sleep, clothing, and 
pure, nourishing food. 

History is full of warnings against the breeding 
of the unfit. The most horrible is that of Ada 
Juke, called by anthropologists the " mother of 
criminals." It is said that of the 1,200 persons 
directly descended from her, 1,000 were paupers, 
inebriates, idiots, thieves or degenerates. To cor- 
rect the diseases, punish the immoralities and sup- 
port the inefficiencies of these thousand persons 
cost the State of New York $1,200,000. Surely 
the topic of eugenics may well be discussed in our 
legislative bodies, along with matters of digging 
sewers, appointing henchmen, and dividing party 
spoils. 

Yet, according to press reports, a " royal " 
marriage was recently planned between the heir 
to a European throne, who has scores of crazy an- 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



cestors back of him, and a young princess of " no- 
ble " blood, who is the sister of eighteen imbe- 
ciles. One of the first lessons needed by kings and 
queens is that to keep a crown in a family of 
no character is a dangerous and deplorable, not 
a laudable, performance. Let peasants marry 
queens, let dairymaids wed emperors, and the evils 
in royal blood may be somewhat mitigated. 

The most fervent apostles of eugenics tend to- 
ward machine-made babies, which are not a 
healthy kind. They forbid the use of a cradle, 
they don't allow a mother to cuddle her baby when 
it cries, they sterilize the life out of all infants' 
food, they even order an antiseptic screen to be 
placed before the mouths of sweethearts and par- 
ents ere they kiss. If such measures are sanitary, 
it is because the germs move away from self- 
respect, not wishing to remain in the company of 
lunatics. 

Study eugenics — then rely on your own com- 
mon sense. If you have growing children see that 
they understand fully the laws of heredity, physi- 
ology, procreation and parenthood; — then let 
their own feelings guide them in choosing a mate. 
The real aim of science is to corroborate, liberate, 
and superextend instinct. Don't let theories be- 
fuddle your heart — but don't let ignorance of 
facts cloud your brain and so cripple your body. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

" Many social reformers make it a woman's 
chief duty to earn economic independence. Why 
should wives and daughters in easy circumstances 
be forced to become bread-winners? " 

Among the host of reasons which indicate the 
need for the economic independence of woman the 
following appear the chief: 

1. Because the rule of might is passing from 
the world, and the rule of right, by nature woman's 
right, is entering. When the principal labor of 
the world was hunting, warring, and breaking 
stone for cave-houses, men had to be the workers. 
But with the refinements of civilization, the op- 
portunities are changing, and with opportunities 
come responsibilities. Many women's clubs are 
apprehending this fact, and are doing for schools, 
villages and altruistic institutions things that men 
never dreamed of. It is said that a woman mayor 
of a western town has defied the board of coun- 
cilmen, holding her own for the sake of a princi- 
ple; also that when a public official of a certain 
large western city proved false to his trust, and 
the men politicians could not handle him, the 
women got together and ousted him bodily. It is 
likely that when women take sufficient interest in 
public affairs to improve politics, the ballot will 
come to them automatically. 

2. Because the brain of a woman needs devel- 

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oping even more than does the brain of a man, 
and the way to develop it is to work hard and long. 
The objection to a " finishing school " for girls is 
that there is nothing there to finish. We are here 
not for accomplishments but for achievements. 
And if we must choose between the crudities of 
business and the niceties of society, we will more 
safely choose the former. 

3. Because idleness is soul-destroying, and the 
girl from eighteen to twenty-five or the matron 
from forty-five to seventy who has no distinctive 
work is dehumanized by the sloth of parasitism. 
There is no more reason why a woman should 
choose between " marriage and a career " than 
why a man should stop to consider, before enter- 
ing a profession, whether he is to be a father or 
not. For twenty years before marriage, and for 
thirty years after the child-bearing period has 
ceased, a woman is still a human being. Why 
should she not be usefully, healthfully and joy- 
ously occupied? 

4. Because the unemployed woman becomes 
oversexed and therefore a menace to decency. 
The conspicuous gown, the flirtatious eye, the lan- 
guorous walk or the loud manner do not belong 
to the woman who has enough work on her hands. 
It is the feminine dolls who make the mischief in 
the masculine ranks. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

5. Because a woman cannot know the value of 
money until she earns it, therefore she cannot be a 
scientific housekeeper or an economic helpmeet. 
Sociologists claim that the failure of many young 
men to marry is due to the extravagance of the 
modern woman. This, in turn, is due to her idle- 
ness and financial irresponsibility. 

6. Because a man's respect must be forced by 
superior strength or cunning, endearments will not 
do it; and the lack or loss of respect is one of the 
first causes of marital woe. There are thousands 
of wives who remain wives through cowardice 
alone. If they were able to support themselves 
and their children, they would not stay with their 
husbands another day. And there are innumera- 
ble small compromises which even the best wives 
make unconsciously through a sense of their own 
weakness. If all matings were ideal the psychol- 
ogy of this principle would not obtain, for the true 
man is ennobled and inspired by the feeling that 
his wife depends on him altogether. But few mat- 
ings are ideal. 

7. Because a woman's intuition should be the 
guide of every man in the crisis of his business or 
profession; but there is rarely a man who will ask 
his wife's opinion unless her logical faculties have 
been trained in the daily mill of toil. Intuition is 
far superior to reason. But the clumsy man- 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



intellect, acquainted with nothing but reasoning, 
will listen to nothing but reasoning until the higher 
sense of discernment is added to the reasoning 
without his knowing it. Hence, in order to be of 
the greatest help to her husband, a woman must 
have experienced somewhat of the battle-field of 
life. 

8. Because ignorance of the world unfits a 
woman to be a mother. Children must be safe- 
guarded not by the secrecy of ignorance but by the 
purity of complete knowledge. The average 
mother knows nothing of what her boy, especially, 
will have to meet. Therefore she cannot advise 
him. As a matter of fact there is probably need 
for race-suicide till mothers know their busi- 
ness. 

If mothers had known their business, they 
woulpl never have permitted the arrogance, inter- 
ference and indelicacy in the attitude of a man- 
preacher of quantitative parenthood. It would 
be just as reasonable, and far more courteous, for 
a girl whose only accomplishment was embroidery 
to direct a captain of industry how to manage a 
great business campaign as for a man doctor or re- 
former to tell women how many children they 
should bear. When this world is civilized, it will 
be the woman, not the man, who determines the 
number of children. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

9. Because in the event of her husband's dis- 
ability, death or delinquency, a woman's children 
must be supported; and only as she herself sup- 
ports them can she control their destiny. One of 
the open disgraces of the modern world is the con- 
stant appeal for alimony in divorce suits brought 
by women. The wife who is no longer a partner 
with her husband in maintaining the home has no 
right to a dollar of his money; and only a mistaken 
sense of gallantry permits such a plea in the 
courts. 

10. Because the world needs the woman genius 
more than any other one individual — and genius 
is primarily work. Since the birth of civilization, 
love has made woman weak but man strong. 
That is because woman has always felt the need of 
some one outside herself to complete her individ- 
uality; and being unable to command, she has 
taken to weeping, pleading and pining. On the 
other hand, most of the greatest poems, operas 
and other works of genius have come through men 
as the result of their suffering and striving for the 
object of their affection. When, through battle, 
toil and blood, the woman who loves greatly has 
learned to immortalise her love through dauntless 
effort, we shall have as works of genius not simply 
art, music or literature, but also the nobler truth 
underlying these forms of creation. 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



" I want to ask you to express yourself a bit on 
the meat question. If a non-flesh diet is health- 
ful and desirable, why do so many of the promi- 
nent vegetarians back-slide in later years, causing 
us to wonder if their teaching was wrong, or only 
their practice ? " 

The way to get the truth on a subject is to hear 
both sides without interruption, then quietly de- 
part, close your eyes and ears, ask yourself what 
you think, and having obtained the answer do ex- 
actly as you feel like doing. First, let us hear 
both sides of the meat question. 

The vegetarian claims ( i ) that meat is a poi- 
son, containing animal deposits which are trans- 
ferred to the arteries and organs of the consumer, 
thus endangering his health; (2) that meat is a 
stimulant, producing a false strength and a harm- 
ful reaction; (3) that meat is a mental incubus, 
rendering a man dull of comprehension, slow of 
wit and cloudy of discretion; (4) that meat is a 
moral deterrent, causing irritability, sensuality, 
fatigue and hence depression; (5) that meat is a 
drain on the family purse, since better foods may 
be served at half the price; (6) that the jaws of 
man are frugivorous like those of the ape, not car- 
nivorous like those of the tiger; (7) that we our- 
selves would not kill the fowls or cattle, but depu- 
tize the unholy job to a butcher, which is cowardly 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

and unfair; (8) that the cattle-pen and slaughter 
house entail horrible suffering on dumb animals, 
and we shall somehow pay for all the suffering we 
inflict; (9) that inasmuch as we cannot give or re- 
store life we have no ethical right to take it; (10) 
that the Bible says " Thou shalt not kill," which 
command applies to helpless animals as well as 
highly-policed, law-protected men. All of which 
is true. 

The anti-vegetarian claims ( 1 ) that any food 
improperly digested turns to poison, that if a man 
exercises enough he can eliminate all unwholesome 
by-products, that cannibals are healthier than civ- 
ilized peoples, and that vegetarians as a class look 
pale, peaked and unutterably sick; (2) that in the 
modern warfare of life, mild stimulants may be 
necessary; (3) that some of the most brilliant in- 
tellects belong to chronic meat-eaters; (4) that 
any food taken to excess is a " moral deterrent," 
and that too much candy or even too much bread 
is non-spiritual in effect; (5) that the substitutes 
for meat consume a prodigious amount of time 
and energy to digest, and that we are not cows 
with nothing to do but chew a cud; (6) that we 
are greater than our jaws, and if we wanted to be 
more like our simian ancestors, we wouldn't build 
houses or wear clothes; (7) that our sensibilities 
are always in advance of our stomachs but that 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



the typical, professional butcher has no sensibili- 
ties to speak of, hence is willing to do the job that 
our appetite indicates while our heart deprecates; 

(8) that the painless killing of cattle is possible, 
being prevented only by the greed of the vendor; 

(9) that so long as we kill thousands of invalids 
by poisonous drugs, hundreds of thousands of ba- 
bies by ignorance and inattention, millions of pau- 
pers, outcasts and criminals by injustice and mis- 
understanding, we need not pause to be oversen- 
timental about the rights of animals whose death 
preserves other human lives; (10) that the Bible 
is full of burnt sacrifices and blood offerings, ap- 
parently made by command of Jehovah, and by 
the law of evolution one shall die that another 
may live. All of which is true. 

Who then is right? We would humbly sug- 
gest that the position of each is noble in some re- 
spects, and crazy in some others. The vegetarian 
is too solemn, too theoretical; the anti-vegetarian 
is too flippant, too materialistic; somewhere be- 
tween them lies the truth, much battered and 
scarce recognizable, yet still worth having. 

The ideal is never to touch meat. And the 
strict vegetarian who can be true to his preaching, 
yet be healthy, happy and efficient, is a teacher 
and exemplar for us all. Such a person may ex- 
ist. I have never seen him. 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

On the other hand, we are hundreds of cen- 
turies away from the ideal — any ideal. If the 
perfect man existed, he could not live on earth. 
Crucifixion, physical or mental, would be his por- 
tion. Crucifixion is not a thing to be evaded, we 
all must come to it some day. Yet to court aliena- 
tion, isolation, and perpetual discomfiture on a mat- 
ter of choice of food seems rather foolish and 
banal. The extreme vegetarian can't eat in or- 
dinary places, with ordinary people. His mind 
is obsessed by his stomach; his stomach is a poor, 
weak thing; and mental dissolution forthwith pro- 
ceeds. The jump is impossible. 

Eat as little meat as you can. Let it be fish 
or fowl, principally. Write to the United States 
Department of Agriculture at Washington, for 
a list of their Farmers' Bulletins of Food Values 
(which are sent free), and have your cook experi- 
ment with the various equivalents of meat. If 
you live in your own home, you can, after a while, 
practically omit flesh food from your dietary. If 
you eat in an ordinary restaurant, you can't do it 
and be sane. But if you have real convictions in 
the matter, live up to them. And die earlier, if 
necessary. 

" How can we learn to see only good every- 
where? " 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



First, we must learn to see through our own 
eyes. Most of what we consider evil is merely 
what somebody has called evil. We are taught 
by a false theology to look for sin, by a false medi- 
cine to look for disease, by a false social system 
to look for oppression, and by a false legal code 
to look for crime. A famous advertisement of a 
successful soap reads " Pure as the thoughts of 
childhood." What a reflection on men and 
women — would that the soap might clarify their 
minds as it cleanses their bodies! A child sees 
only good until its mind is poisoned by some one 
who has learned more but is not half so wise. 

A dear friend of ours, a clergyman with snow 
on his head but summer in his heart, says that 
he has made it a rule when taking a new parish 
not to listen to the neighbors' opinion of his new 
parishioners, but to form his own judgments on 
the merits of the individual. In thus evading gos- 
sip, good and bad, he has found that unprejudiced 
acquaintance reversed many of the current beliefs 
regarding people — some of the very bad really 
tried to be good, and some of the very good were 
by no means angels. The growing life is a con- 
stant revision of opinions. 

Then, we must look to the beginning, where 
the motive is always good, and to the end, where 
the finished product of the saddest, hardest, worst 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

experience is fine, strong and beautiful. Many a 
gnarled apple tree, with branches twisted and 
roots out of line, has brought forth the most 
luscious fruit of the orchard. Why look at the 
tree, when the fruit is that for which the tree 
exists ? 

Again, we must put a stop to false relationships, 
which make us compromise with our own real 
selves, and thus entertain evil that otherwise would 
be absent. Two ill-trained youths, on a platform 
of the elevated road the other day, were attempt- 
ing to flirt with girls in the windows they passed, 
all the way uptown. Suddenly, one youth left the 
train — and immediately the other, putting off his 
sheep's eyes, commenced to behave. A large pro- 
portion of evil, especially among men, is mere 
bravado — they imagine badness a proof of 
smartness, being no more grown-up than the small 
boy who, smoking a cigarette with the gusto of a 
man, thinks himself a man in all respects. Few 
of the bad things in character are spontaneous, 
most are contagious. And as the true physician 
regards disease in the light of a temporary cleans- 
ing of the system, so should the moralist and phi- 
losopher think of evil as a brief manifestation of 
activities really foreign to the soul. 

Finally, we must emphasise and exalt the good in 
our own life, and thus attract and enlarge the good 
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EFFICIENT LIVING 



in others. As germs do not breed in a healthy 
body, so wrongs do not breed in a healthy mind. 
By feeding our minds with the finest literature, 
music and art, instead of with the scandals, mur- 
ders and other forms of cheap sensationalism that 
appear in the daily press, we can build a mental 
vigor and establish a moral tone which will render 
us immune to evils that are contagious. It is as 
easy for oil and water to mix as for evil to gain 
a foothold in a consciousness kept pure. 

" I have a problem in my life that I have not 
been able to solve alone, and ask for your kind 
assistance. When I am with my husband I am 
another person. I seem to be all wrong; all the 
bad qualities of my nature come out — all the 
sweeter, nobler qualities seem to be silenced — in 
other words I am not myself. 

" This is causing my life to be a failure as far 
as my home is concerned. As soon as he leaves 
I feel like being good — doing things — living a 
great life. I have a great many splendid friends 
and opportunities, but on account of this I feel that 
my life is all wrong. What is the cause of this, 
and what can I do to overcome it and rise high 
enough for these influences not to affect me? " 

Friction between two members of the same fam- 
ily is very common; but a discord so extreme be- 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

tween husband and wife is very rare, and very 
hard to analyze without knowing the conditions 
more fully. 

First, can you not probe for the cause of the 
mental inharmony? 

Perhaps you never really loved the man you 
married — I cannot imagine any one caring for 
another supremely and yet being irritated by his 
presence. If such is the case, you are paying for 
your blunder, and your lesson may be to suffer in 
silence, until expiation is accomplished. But you 
can overrule the inharmony, you can change your 
viewpoint, you can dwell upon all the good there 
is in your husband and close your eyes to his 
faults. 

The cause may lie in some deception, on your 
part, or his, or on the part of both. Many hus- 
bands and wives do little things that they wish to 
conceal from each other, and so cover themselves 
with a falseness that is bound to create trouble. 
To real mates, such a condition is not only impos- 
sible, but inconceivable; there are, however, few 
real mates. 

You, or he, may be growing, one so much fas- 
ter than the other, that the breach of disparity 
must continue to widen. Then you must plan to 
separate, or agree to disagree, or advance to- 
gether in the realms of truth. If your husband 

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EFFICIENT LIVING 



has a dominant personality, and a materialistic 
nature, and if you are just beginning to find your 
wings, you will be oppressed until you have won 
freedom. But remember that all friction is mu- 
tual, and that so long as you have bad qualities to 
come out, he suffers in experiencing what you suf- 
fer only in expressing. 

The following brief suggestions may be help- 
ful: 

i. Be sure that you and he are both in perfect 
physical health. Diseases of body create dis- 
eases of mind. The origin may therefore be 
physical. 

2. Leave your home for a time, either visiting 
friends, or studying and training for an individual 
life. Separation brings vision, and revives af- 
fection. 

3. Earn economic independence. The reasons 
are too lengthy to be explained, but the fact is 
that from the day a woman proves her ability to 
make money, her position in the home is entirely 
changed. 

4. Find the points of harmony between you 
and cultivate them. When two musical instru- 
ments are out of tune, the musician strikes a com- 
mon note and from this unison proceeds upward. 
So with the consonance and dissonance in life — 
when we strike the soft, harmonious chords, 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

clearly enough and often enough, the harsh sounds 
vanish because there is no one to dwell upon them. 

11 I am convinced by various symptoms that I 
have about my system considerable uric acid. 
Will you kindly tell me just what foods produce 
uric acid, that I may hereafter avoid them? " 

Uric acid is one of the many toxic by-products 
caused by an ill-balanced diet, which puts more 
work on certain organs than they can perform 
successfully. Too much proteid, too little of the 
fibre of vegetables and the liquid of fruits; that 
gives the answer in brief. 

Uric acid is primarily fatigue. All flesh foods 
and animal products contain it in large or small 
degree. Sufferers with rheumatism, gout or kid- 
ney trouble should eat sparingly, if at all, of meat, 
eggs, milk, cheese, beans, peas and lentils. (The 
legumes do not occasion, but merely emphasize, 
the presence of uric acid.) Sluggish animals — 
cattle and swine — because of their unnatural, 
sedentary habits, allow the deposit to accumulate; 
while those of rapid movement — hare, deer and 
pheasant — eliminate the poison through exercise. 
Red meats are bad for rheumatism; game, fish 
and white meats, though perhaps undesirable, are 
not wholly forbidden. 

This answers your question. But there is more 

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to say. The expectation of trying to "avoid" 
things will produce a condition worse than rheu- 
matism ever dared be. Cure your trouble — then 
eat what you like. A diet of prohibition is a diet 
of paralysis. The fear-germ kills more people 
than the most sanguine undertaker could imagine. 
If meat is good at all — which every one must 
learn for himself — then the body which can't as- 
similate should be doctored so it will. A re- 
stricted menu, by way of temporary relief, is good 
for most ailments; nothing however is more en- 
slaving than a regular bondage to health foods. 
A gill of joy at mealtime is worth a pint of pepsin. 
Any wholesome food can be loved into digesting 
perfectly. This coddling business is all wrong. 
Anything that has to be avoided shows chronic 
weakness in the avoider. Eat what you like ; then 
if it won't agree, put your liking apparatus in self- 
respecting order. 

Among the systems of treatment that will di- 
minish, expel and prevent the return of deposit in 
the blood are these natural methods of stimula- 
tion: hydrotherapy, massage for liver and kidneys, 
abdominal breathing exercises vigorous enough to 
re-awaken the digestive functions, work or play 
that makes you perspire, short periods of fasting, 
and severe applications of heat (as in the Turkish 
bath). There are now institutions with facilities 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

for baking poison out of the human body; it is 
said that the richest man in the world has em- 
ployed the intense dry heat thus available for 
rheumatism, to his great satisfaction. A good 
substitute is a bath cabinet, costing $5 and up- 
wards, to be had from any large drug store. This, 
by the way, is a modern essential of a well- 
equipped, sanitary bathroom. Once a month or 
so, from October till May, perspiration should be 
forced in this manner, to offset the usual inactivity 
of the pores during the winter season. Pure 
blood is an economic asset, producing the clear 
brain and strong body that lead in the race of 
life. 

" What constitutes a superior man or woman? 
Please give in the order of their importance the 
mental, moral, spiritual, physical and material in- 
stincts, attributes or faculties that are essential in 
the making of a perfect or ideal man or woman." 

1. A strong, healthy body and full enjoyment 
thereof. So far as he goes, the athlete is a model 
type. He takes care of himself, he can use him- 
self, he is proud of himself. Foolishly proud, of 
course — a bunch of muscle is as far from making 
a man as a driving-rod is far from making a steam 
engine. Yet there is a wholesomeness, mental 
and moral, in a well-groomed physique ; the man 

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who is frankly, purely, gloriously, pagan is more 
religious than the man who is good because he is 
sick. The worst part of sickness is that it looks 
like goodness to the great, blind, majority. The 
spiritual man is, first, all-sensitive; but, finally, 
all-strong. And the fellow who doesn't enjoy, 
for its own sake, a healthy outdoor game with a 
bit of honest roughness to it, has not reached his 
spiritual prime. Don't believe the chap who 
boasts that he " never exercises " — he does ex- 
ercise; he exercises the patience of his family with 
his crotchets, and the politeness of his friends with 
his fool ideas. Thanks to the coming age of rea- 
son, the maiden with a bird-like appetite is no 
longer fashionable; chefs are now commanding 
the salaries of college presidents ; and children are 
not now expected to leave their " manners " on 
their plate in the guise of food much desired, but 
deserted by order of Mock Delicacy. We are 
beginning to realize that we are animals, and 
something more. Whereas, formerly, we endeav- 
ored to be ultimates, not having been primates. 
The only shame in being physical is in feeling 
shame. 

2. A spiritual understanding of the purpose of 
life, and a moral determination to achieve it. 
This may be had through meditation; through 
study of the world's best philosophies and re- 

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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

ligions; through association with great souls, liv- 
ing or dead; through extreme self-sacrifice; 
through sudden responsibility; through ideal 
parenthood; through fasting and prayer. Until 
one feels himself consciously a part of destiny, 
a supreme essential to the Divine Plan, he will 
not be inspired or enabled to attain a fraction of 
his most and best. The universal sin is that of 
drifting. We fail to nerve ourselves for sus- 
tained, noble action, because we fail to value our- 
selves at anything like our true worth. Every 
human being is surcharged with godlike possibili- 
ties; by cultivating insight, and daring to believe 
in his own overtowering ambition, the humblest 
youth may grow to be a giant. 

3. A systematic training of thei leading mental 
faculties. These include imagination, concentra- 
tion, perseverance, order, construcxiveness, hope- 
fulness, courage, tact. Rational education should 
begin with analysis of a child's capabilities, and 
end with equipment thereof. Instead, the child 
is forced to study books that have no bearing what- 
soever on his own talents or the life before him — 
then to be examined and " passed " on nothing 
at all save his gift of memorizing disjointed facts 
that he must forget as soon as possible to leave 
room in his mind for a post-graduate, hit-hard- 
and-often, bread-and-butter education. The 
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power in the " self-made man " lies in the fact that 
he was self-educated; he found what mental traits 
he needed for success, then he went to work and 
developed them. Some years ago the writer had a 
beautiful menagerie of pet weaknesses, which he 
languidly but regularly fed on the sugar-plums of 
pride, caprice and self-indulgence. They nearly 
ate him out of house and home. He wasn't worth 
shucks, in a practical sense, until he dumped his 
whole circus of sleek, dangerous pets off the top 
of his mountain of folly and watched them land in 
the sea. What is your pet weakness? Catch it, 
fasten it, drown it, and forget it. 

4. A sense of emotional poise, which renders 
self-command easy under all circumstances. Emo- 
tions are the leaders of men — thoughts are but 
the servants of the leaders. Anger, jealousy, 
worry, passion, fear, greed, suspicion; these rob- 
bers of the heart despoil us most of our mental 
and physical reserves. The greatest economic as- 
set in the life of any man is the power to say " I 
will not be moved by any but the pleasant things." 
Even generosity becomes a vice when bereft of 
the mild restraint of justice. Balance is the 
crowning gift of the gods; he who has it is very 
near perfection. 

The ideal individual is not the one whose nature 
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GUIDE TO EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS 

: ^ 

is perfect, but the one whose knowledge and use of 
his nature is perfect. Thus, while differing end- 
lessly, we can all be more or less ideal, and alto- 
gether perfect in our standard of perfection. 



THE END 



VAIL-BALLOU CO., BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK 



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